How to optimize space on iMac hard drive
How do I optimize space on my iMac hard drive? I have everything backed up on a SSD. Do I start dumping photos and videos into the trash?
iMac 24″, macOS 26.2
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Broadly speaking, yes, you must dump files from the startup drive. You can delete them and empty the trash, or you can move them to an external drive, then delete them from the startup drive and empty the trash.
You can use apps such as DaisyDisk from Software Ambience or OmniDiskSweeper from Omni Labs to find large files on your drive. Once you've located these larger user files, you can relocate them to another drive and/or delete them if they aren't needed.
This from Apple on the subject of freeing up space:
Free up storage space on Mac - Apple Support
Also, please see the following guidance from Apple:
Find and delete files on your Mac - Apple Support
Also, macOS does keep a number of Time Machine snapshots on the drive as part of the backup process. TM snapshots can occupy a significant amount of drive space. You can disable the creation of these many TM snapshots by setting TM to backup manually rather than automatically at intervals.
You can view and manage these in Disk Utility.
About Time Machine local snapshots on Mac - Apple Support