Although a Mac is known for having great performance, even this device/operating system can accumulate a lot of clutter. That appears due to constant usage, and sometimes it even affects the general performance of your device. But how can you remove clutter and speed up your Mac’s performance?
What takes up space on your mac?
It’s really tough to find out what’s really taking up on space on you Mac. Most of the space on your Mac is consumed by different data and files which you can break down into different groups:
- Huge and old files
- System junk
- App leftovers
- Old backups
- Photos junk
- Trash bins
- Mail attachments
Getting rid of all these things systematically will free up space on your Mac. Let’s go over some methods you can try to clean your Mac.
Here you have a few ways to make it work!
Use a Mac cleanup tool
Cleanup tools like CleanMyMac will automatically scan your device for any clutter, duplicate files or potential malware. The entire process is automatic, and all you need to do is to initiate a scan. The app will do the rest for you and even get rid of those unwanted files very fast. It’s highly efficient and it can boost the performance of your device in ways you would not expect.
Uninstall some apps
Check the app list and see if there are apps that you barely use or never used at all. Those are just clutter and they clog your device’s performance. The best thing to do here is to try and uninstall those apps as fast as possible. Once you remove them from your device, you will see an increase in performance. That can make a huge difference if you’re running apps that squeeze all the resources from your Mac.
Check login items
Some apps will have daemons and background services that launch with the device. A good idea is to check login items and see if there are any that you don’t know. You can stop or remove those login items, which in turn can give you a performance boost.
Optimize storage
From General/Storage, you will have access to an option called “optimize storage”. It can help since this feature removes old media you already watched or used, and which was not accessed since then. Every bit of space helps, and this feature can be extremely useful, especially for avid media consumers.
Delete apps you don’t use
The applications on your Mac takes up a lot of space, but they’re necessary. But, what about the apps that you don’t use anymore. If your Mac is full of apps that you don’t use, over time it becomes full and starts running slowly.
How to clean your Mac? Just get rid of all the old apps that you don’t use anymore. Remove the apps that you longer need. Go to your apps list, right-click on any app you want to remove and click on the “Move to Trash” option.
Remove old backups and downloads
Sometimes you download software or files but forget about them. That becomes an issue since all those files clutter up on your device. What you can do is remove those downloads you are not using anymore. A similar thing is valid when it comes to old backups. It’s okay to have a backup but keep only the latest one, or maybe the last 2 at most. Having dozens of backups for your Mac or iPhone won’t do anything other than occupy precious space on your device.
Empty the Trash
Even if you’ve deleted old files, apps, and other data, they won’t empty your Mac. These files are just going to go and land in your Trash bin. While these files will be removed from your device after a while automatically, but why wait? You can get your precious hard disk space instantly.
Here are the steps you need to follow to clean trash on your Macbook:
- Click and hold the Trash/Bin icon in the Dock.
- Click on “Empty Trash”.
Clean up cache
Cleaning cache is a term that’s usually associated with browser related troubleshooting. But, your Mac stores a lot of cache too. This stored cache is what allows faster access to data. While useful, cache files take up a huge amount of space on your device. Over time, it ends up consuming a lot of storage which ultimately slows down your device.
Get rid of cache files so you give your system a much needed boost.
Final Take – How to clean your Mac?
All these ideas are great if you want to remove clutter from your Mac. It’s a great idea to try and eliminate clutter, and it’s not that hard to do either. All you need to do is test it out for yourself, and you’ll see why removing clutter from your Mac is so beneficial. You can try out all the steps mentioned above, and if nothing else works, factory resetting your Mac may be able to do the trick.
Plus, with automated tools, all you need to do is initiate a scan, and they will do the work for you. That’s why we highly recommend using these tips and ideas, because they can help speed up your Mac’s boot times, along with improving its general performance.