1. 7.Clean up temporary files, system caches and logs You may clean up a variety of System logs and temporary files to increase your Mac’s disk space. Use third party utilities like MainMenu or similar others can help you.
2. How to manually clear System storage on your Mac. The best way to clean up System storage on your Mac depends on the kind of System files that are taking up your space. Since your Mac doesn’t actually show you which files are using your storage, you’ll need to try out all of the methods below to find one that works instead.

Over time, your Mac probably accumulates a lot of cruft. Old applications you no longer use, data you have no use for, a desktop full of icons (only four of which you actually ever use)…you know what I mean. With so many people working from home lately, the problem has only gotten worse.

Now is as good a time as any to tidy up your Mac, freeing up storage space and probably CPU cycles and RAM in the process. Here are a few tips to make quick work of your Mac “spring cleaning.”

Optimize Storage

It can include system files and caches, browser extensions, media files stored inside other applications, and files that are created by third-party apps. Files that cannot be fully identified and classified by Spotlight are grouped as Other storage. Ways to Clean Other Storage on Your Mac. In fact, cleaning up separately according to the above is a very troublesome thing, so I recommend you can use the Mac Cleaner under the iMyMac website to clean up. It combines the above ten functions with one software. This is a piece of software that I have used recently to clean up my Mac.

Open the Storage Management app, either by using Spotlight (Command-space) or by clicking the Apple logo in the upper left of the menu bar, choosing About This Mac, clicking the Storage tab, then Manage.

In the Recommendations tab you’ll see a number of useful options, like Store in iCloud and Empty Trash Automatically. The Optimize Storage solution will get rid of things like old TV shows you’ve already watched and old email attachments when you’re low on storage space.

Take a look at your Applications and Documents

While you’re in the Storage Management app, click on the Applications tab in the left column. You can see all your installed applications here and sort them by size, easily deleting apps you haven’t used in ages.

Then, click on Documents in the left tab. There are several sections here, like Large Files and Unsupported Apps, that are worth perusing. Big library files (for apps like Lightroom or Final Cut Pro) are likely to show up here, and you might not want to mess with them. But you may have old large files and documents, or apps that no longer even work on your version of macOS, that you can safely remove.

Get your desktop under control

If your desktop is littered with icons, you should probably tidy things up a bit. Right-click (two-finger tap on a trackpad) any open space and choose Clean Up to get things arranged neatly, or Clean Up By to sort them as well. Consider the Use Stacks feature to automatically stack-up files of the same type into a single icon. Just click on that icon to open the stack. This can really tidy up your desktop!

Try DaisyDisk

Power users that really want to clean out their Mac’s storage may want to check out a third party app like DaisyDisk ($9.99). It’s a simple and clear way to see everything on your Mac, or any other attached storage device or drive. It can do things like dig into the mysterious “Other” category and help you clear out what you don’t need.

It may seem unnecessary to pay money for an app that just helps you delete stuff from your Mac’s storage, but there’s a lot of value in disk analyzers like this. It can really be eye-opening to see exactly what’s filling up your Mac’s SSD.

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

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

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

Find out how much storage is available on your Mac

Choose Apple menu  > About This Mac and 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 optimising your storage. If some recommendations have already been turned on, you will see fewer recommendations.

Store in iCloud

Click the Store in iCloud button and 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 work offline easily. Files only stored in iCloud will display a download icon , which you can double-click to download the original file. Find out more about this feature.
  
• Photos. Store all original, full-resolution photos and videos in iCloud Photos. When storage space is needed, only space-saving (optimised) 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. Find out 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 50 GB for $0.99 (USD) a month, and you can purchase additional storage directly from your Apple device. Find out more about the prices in your region.

Optimise Storage

Click the Optimise button to save space by automatically removing films and TV programmes you've watched. When storage space is needed, films or TV programmes that you've purchased from Apple and have already watched will be removed from your Mac. Click the download icon next to a film or TV programme to download it again.

Your Mac will also save space by only keeping 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.

Optimising storage for films, TV programmes and email attachments doesn't require iCloud storage space.

Empty Bin Automatically

Mac Delete System Files

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

Reduce Clutter

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

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.

Find out how to re-download apps, music, films, TV programmes 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 these settings directly within each app.

• If you're using macOS Catalina or later, choose Apple menu  > System Preferences, click Apple ID, and then select iCloud in the sidebar: Store in iCloud turns on the Optimise 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 Optimise Mac Storage settings.
• In Photos, choose Photos > Preferences and then click iCloud. Store in iCloud selects iCloud Photos and Optimise 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. Optimise Storage selects “Automatically delete watched films and TV programmes”.
• In you're using macOS Mojave or earlier, open iTunes, choose iTunes > Preferences from the menu bar, then click Advanced. Optimise Storage selects “Automatically delete watched films and TV programmes”.
• In Mail, choose Mail > Preferences from the menu bar and then click Accounts. In the Account Information section on the right, Optimise Storage sets the Download Attachments menu to either Recent or None.

Mac System Storage High

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

Other ways that macOS automatically helps to save space

How To Clean System Storage Mac

With macOS Sierra or later, your Mac will take these additional steps automatically 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 Optimised Storage features described in this article, you can take other steps to make more storage space available:

• Music, films and other media can use a lot of storage space. Find out how to delete music, films and TV programmes from your device.
• Delete other files that you no longer need by moving them to the Bin, then emptying the Bin. The Downloads folder is good place to look for files that you may 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 Deleted Items 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 may 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 only frees up the space required by any data that 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 Optimise Mac Storage, find out how to make sure your projects are always on your Mac and able to access their files.