How To Find Out The Storage On Your Mac

  1. How To Find Out The Storage On Your Macbook Pro
  2. How To Find Out The Storage On Your Mac Hard Drive
  3. How To Find Out The Storage On Your Mac Air

Beginners like me often get confused over memory or storage. STORAGE capacity hard drive is much more difficult for mac newbies to access. I still do not know why I would need to know my processor speed, even if I need to upgrade my memory RAM to increase my imac’s working speed. Thank you for your. Here’s how to check how much storage space you have left on your Mac using macOS. Click on the  Apple logo in the top left of your screen and select About This Mac: Click on the Storage tab at the top of the panel. On macOS 10.12 Sierra, it will look like the panel below. You can check your Mac storage in a few different ways. To get a full breakdown of your Mac computer's storage space, click the Apple logo in the upper left corner and navigate to 'About This Mac.'

Optimized Storage helps you save storage space space by storing your content in iCloud and making it available on demand:

  • When storage space is needed, files, photos, movies, email attachments, and other files that you seldom use are stored in iCloud automatically.
  • Each file stays right where you last saved it, and downloads when you open it.
  • Files that you’ve used recently remain on your Mac, along with optimized versions of your photos.

If you haven't yet upgraded to macOS Sierra or later, learn about other ways to free up storage space.

Find out how much storage is available on your Mac

Choose Apple menu  > About This Mac, then click Storage. Each segment of the bar is an estimate of the storage space used by a category of files. Move your pointer over each segment for more detail.

Click the Manage button to open the Storage Management window, pictured below.

Manage storage on your Mac

The Storage Management window offers recommendations for optimizing your storage. If some recommendations are already turned on, you will see fewer recommendations.

Store in iCloud

Click the Store in iCloud button, then choose from these options:

  • Desktop and Documents. Store all files from these two locations in iCloud Drive. When storage space is needed, only the files you recently opened are kept on your Mac, so that you can easily work offline. Files stored only in iCloud show a download icon , which you can double-click to download the original file. Learn more about this feature.
  • Photos. Store all original, full-resolution photos and videos in iCloud Photos. When storage space is needed, only space-saving (optimized) versions of photos are kept on your Mac. To download the original photo or video, just open it.
  • Messages. Store all messages and attachments in iCloud. When storage space is needed, only the messages and attachments you recently opened are kept on your Mac. Learn more about Messages in iCloud.

Storing files in iCloud uses the storage space in your iCloud storage plan. If you reach or exceed your iCloud storage limit, you can either buy more iCloud storage or make more iCloud storage available. iCloud storage starts at 50GB for $0.99 (USD) a month, and you can purchase additional storage directly from your Apple device. Learn more about prices in your region.

How To Find Out The Storage On Your Macbook Pro

Optimize Storage

Click the Optimize button to save space by automatically removing watched movies and TV shows. When storage space is needed, movies or TV shows that you purchased from Apple and already watched are removed from your Mac. Click the download icon next to a movie or TV show to download it again.

Your Mac will also save space by keeping only recent email attachments on this Mac when storage space is needed. You can manually download any attachments at any time by opening the email or attachment, or saving the attachment to your Mac.

How To Find Out The Storage On Your Mac Hard Drive

Optimizing storage for movies, TV shows, and email attachments doesn't require iCloud storage space.

Empty Trash Automatically

Empty Trash Automatically permanently deletes files that have been in the Trash for more than 30 days.

Reduce Clutter

Reduce Clutter helps you identify large files and files you might no longer need. Click the Review Files button, then choose any of the file categories in the sidebar, such as Applications, Documents, Music Creation, or Trash.

You can delete the files in some categories directly from this window. Other categories show the total storage space used by the files in each app. You can then open the app and decide whether to delete files from within it.

Learn how to redownload apps, music, movies, TV shows, and books.


Where to find the settings for each feature

The button for each recommendation in the Storage Management window affects one or more settings in other apps. You can also control those settings directly within each app.

  • If you're using macOS Catalina or later, choose Apple menu  > System Preferences, click Apple ID, then select iCloud in the sidebar: Store in iCloud turns on the Optimize Mac Storage setting on the right. To turn off iCloud Drive entirely, deselect iCloud Drive.
  • If you're using macOS Mojave or earlier, choose Apple menu > System Preferences, click iCloud, then click Options next to iCloud Drive. Store in iCloud turns on the Desktop & Documents Folders and Optimize Mac Storage settings.
  • In Photos, choose Photos > Preferences, then click iCloud. Store in iCloud selects iCloud Photos and Optimize Mac Storage.
  • In Messages, choose Messages > Preferences, then click iMessage. Store in iCloud selects Enable Messages in iCloud.
  • If you're using macOS Catalina or later, open the Apple TV app, choose TV > Preferences from the menu bar, then click Files. Optimize Storage selects “Automatically delete watched movies and TV shows.”
  • In you're using macOS Mojave or earlier, open iTunes, choose iTunes > Preferences from the menu bar, then click Advanced. Optimize Storage selects “Automatically delete watched movies and TV shows.”
  • In Mail, choose Mail > Preferences from the menu bar, then click Accounts. In the Account Information section on the right, Optimize Storage sets the Download Attachments menu to either Recent or None.

Empty Trash Automatically: From the Finder, choose Finder > Preferences, then click Advanced. Empty Trash Automatically selects “Remove items from the Trash after 30 days.”

Other ways that macOS helps automatically save space

With macOS Sierra or later, your Mac automatically takes these additional steps to save storage space:

  • Detects duplicate downloads in Safari, keeping only the most recent version of the download
  • Reminds you to delete used app installers
  • Removes old fonts, languages, and dictionaries that aren't being used
  • Clears caches, logs, and other unnecessary data when storage space is needed

How to free up storage space manually

Even without using the Optimized Storage features described in this article, you can take other steps to make more storage space available:

  • Music, movies, and other media can use a lot of storage space. Learn how to delete music, movies, and TV shows from your device.
  • Delete other files that you no longer need by moving them to the Trash, then emptying the Trash. The Downloads folder is good place to look for files that you might no longer need.
  • Move files to an external storage device.
  • Compress files.
  • Delete unneeded email: In the Mail app, choose Mailbox > Erase Junk Mail. If you no longer need the email in your Trash mailbox, choose Mailbox > Erase Deleted Items.

Learn more

  • The Storage pane of About This Mac is the best way to determine the amount of storage space available on your Mac. Disk Utility and other apps might show storage categories such as Not Mounted, VM, Recovery, Other Volumes, Free, or Purgeable. Don't rely on these categories to understand how to free up storage space or how much storage space is available for your data.
  • When you duplicate a file on an APFS-formatted volume, that file doesn't use additional storage space on the volume. Deleting a duplicate file frees up only the space required by any data you might have added to the duplicate. If you no longer need any copies of the file, you can recover all of the storage space by deleting both the duplicate and the original file.
  • If you're using a pro app and Optimize Mac Storage, learn how to make sure that your projects are always on your Mac and able to access their files.

It is a good practice to periodically check and monitor the storage space occupied by various programs and files on your Mac. You will find below the steps to Check Storage on Mac.

Check and Manage Storage on Mac

All that is required to Check and Manage Storage on Mac is to click on the Apple Logo located in the top menu bar of your Mac and click on ‘About This Mac’ option in the drop-down menu.

Apart from this there are other ways to check and manage the current status of storage space occupied by various files and programs on your device.

1. Easy Way to Check Storage on Mac

As mentioned above, the easiest and the quickest way to get the current status of storage on Mac is to click on the Apple Logo in top menu bar.

1. Click on the Apple Logo in top menu bar and select About This Mac option in the drop-down menu.

2. On the next screen, click on Storage and wait for your Mac to calculate the amount of storage space available on your device.

Within a few seconds, you will see a graphical representation of the amount of storage space used and remaining on your device.

3. To find more storage details, click on the Manage button.

4. On the next screen, click on Applications in the left-pane. In the right-pane, you will see the storage space occupied by each Application on your Mac.

How To Find Out The Storage On Your Mac Air

Similarly, you can click on Documents, Music and other tabs to see the amount of storage space taken up by Documents, Music and other items on your Mac.

How

2. Check Storage on Mac Using Finder

The first step is to enable Hard Disk in Finder side-bar menu. After Hard Disk appears in Finder, you will be able to check Hard Disk Status on your Mac.

1. Click on the Finder icon on your Mac.

2. Next, click on the Finder tab in top menu bar and select Preferences option in the drop-down menu.

3. On Finder Preferences screen, select the Sidebar tab and check Hard Disks option under ‘Locations’ section.

Once the option to show Hard Disk in Finder side-bar menu is enabled, you will be able to check the status of storage on Mac by opening Finder.

1. Click on the Finder icon located in the Dock of your Mac.

2. On the next screen, right-click on Macintosh… in side menu and select Get Info option in the contextual menu.

On the next screen, you will be able to see detailed storage information on your Mac.

3. Check Storage on Mac Using Disk Utility

Another way to check the status of storage on Mac is by using Disk Utility.

1. Press Command + Option + Spacebar keys to open the spotlight search on your Mac.

2. On the next screen, type Disk Utility in the search bar and double-click on Disk Utility in the search results.

3. On the Disk Utility screen, you will clearly see the status of storage occupied and available on your Mac.