Mac Air Documents Folder Large
My Documents folder in Finder shows 12 GB of documents, but I only see incidental files from years ago. Can I clean out these files and recover space? Any implications?
MacBook Air 11", macOS 10.13
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chuck_3rd
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Community Specialist
Hey Rick!
From what you mentioned, you'd like to clear up some storage on your MacBook Air. I'd be glad to provide you with a few items that might be of some use to you.
Do you have a single user on your Mac or more than one? If you're not sure, you can check by going to System Preferences > Users & Groups. Also, take a quick peek at the "Manage storage on your Mac" section of How to free up storage space on your Mac as that's another great way to free up space if it's a premium. The Reduce Clutter option might be perfect for you.
There's also a possibility that it could be a folder rather than a file taking up all the space. To find out, you can set the Finder window up to show you the space inside folders. To do that, open up a Finder window and click on Documents in the sidebar. Choose list view either from the View menu or by clicking the second option in the View bar of icons. Click on Action and choose Show View Options. Mac sure that 'Calculate All Sizes' is checked, as doing so will enable the ability to see the size of everything within a folder from the Documents folder itself. This is also something that you can do for any folder you wish, but it needs to be done for each one separately.
Let me know how that goes.
Be well!