3 Ways to Free Space for macOS Monterey

Want to give macOS 12 Monterey a try? The update comes with a lot of big features that almost everyone will be excited about. But before you start to install it, you should check out if your Mac is compatible with the new operating system and make sure that you have around 20GB of free storage space available on your hard drive.

You can check storage space if you click on the Apple menu icon and choose About This Mac. Then you need to select Storage. You’ll see a chart with sections of different colors and you’ll be able to find out how much space is available.

If you have enough disk space for an upgrade, that’s great. And if you don’t, you’ll find some useful tips on how to free storage space in this article, so keep reading.

Free Disk Space on MacOS

Let Apple Help You Save Space

Your Mac has a built-in tool that can help you optimize the storage space. You can access this feature if you open the Apple menu and then select About This Mac. Next, you need to click on Storage, and then press the Manage button.

The operating system will calculate how much space is being taken up by different categories. You’ll see this information on the left side of the window. You can delete files from any of these folders, except Other and System that are greyed out.

If you click on any category, you’ll get recommendations on what can be done to free up some space. The options may include optimizing storage, storing files in iCloud, reviewing files to manually delete those that you don’t need anymore, setting to empty Trash automatically.

Following the system’s suggestions is unlikely to solve all the problems, but you can at least start from that.

Check Your Downloads Folder

All PDF documents and different images that you download from the internet end up in the Downloads folder. It’s always a good idea to delete the contents of this folder on a regular basis. And if you, just like many users, forget to remove downloaded files, they may take up a significant amount of your disk space. So if you need more free space to install Monterey, it’s time to get rid of some of the old downloads.

  • Open Finder and go to Downloads.
  • Review the items and select the files that you want to delete.
  • Drag and drop the chosen files in the Trash bin. Don’t forget to click Empty Trash.
  • You may also want to delete the largest files. Then, you’ll need to sort them by size.

Delete the Apps That You Don’t Use Anymore

All of us may have apps, which we installed on impulse and don’t actually use them. If you remove these applications from your system, it may save you precious gigabytes of storage space.

You will be able to delete unnecessary apps manually if you open Finder and then go to Applications. It’s easy to find the old ones and see them all in one place. You just need to click on the Group icon, which is on the top of the window. Then you should choose Date Added, and the older apps will appear at the end of the list. You can get rid of any app if you right-click on it and choose Move to Trash.

The downside of this method is that you may not be able to delete hidden, leftover files from these apps and they will be taking up space on your drive. But you can quickly and effectively uninstall unused applications with the help of a good cleaning tool.



Be the first to comment

Leave a Reply

counter for wordpress