Storage
problem: saving particularly PDFs needs minutes.
Etrecheck says: not enough storage. 75 B of 500 GB available.
I deleted files with change date before 2022 but that deleted also files still in use.
Is there a quick method to determine and delete files which are not longer actively used without digging for
days to find them?
Thank you in advance.
Peter
Mac mini, macOS 26.3
Post the entire report as shown below:
Copy the report
and after clicking on the Reply button use the Additional Text button to paste the report in your reply.
Then we can examine the report and see if we can determine additional causes of the problem.
From what you've said you are getting low on free space. I try to keep a minimum of 100 GB of free space to allow for optimum system and application performance.
The files that you have control over are located in the Documents, Downloads, Pictures, Music and Movies folders. You can use either of these two free apps, GrandPerspective or OmniDiscSweeper, to find the largest files on your drive so you can determine if they can be deleted or moved to an external HD for storage. I prefer GrandPrspective but try them both.
Note: you can also empty the Downloads folder after the apps and/or updates that were downloaded have been installed or applied. Many users have found a couple of Gigabytes of files in their Downloads folder which are no longer needed.
Post the entire report as shown below:
Copy the report
and after clicking on the Reply button use the Additional Text button to paste the report in your reply.
Then we can examine the report and see if we can determine additional causes of the problem.
From what you've said you are getting low on free space. I try to keep a minimum of 100 GB of free space to allow for optimum system and application performance.
The files that you have control over are located in the Documents, Downloads, Pictures, Music and Movies folders. You can use either of these two free apps, GrandPerspective or OmniDiscSweeper, to find the largest files on your drive so you can determine if they can be deleted or moved to an external HD for storage. I prefer GrandPrspective but try them both.
Note: you can also empty the Downloads folder after the apps and/or updates that were downloaded have been installed or applied. Many users have found a couple of Gigabytes of files in their Downloads folder which are no longer needed.
Please post your EtreCheckPro report.
As per > How to use the Add Text Feature When Post… - Apple Community
There is no magic for deleting individual files to free up Storage Space.
It could take hours or days manually sorting thru your files to only gain a few GB.
If you want to free up space large chunks of Storage Space.
You'll need move your Photos, Music or Movie Libraries to an external hard drive.
Move your Photos library to save space on your Mac - Apple Support
Change where your music files are stored on Mac - Apple Support
Move your iMovie for Mac library - Apple Support
“Mac storage full: How to delete unused files?[…]Is there a quick method to determine and delete files which are not longer actively used without digging for
days to find them?[…]“
———-
Clearing Space on a Mac:
Clear your System Data:
Looking in Disk Utility, see how much is being swollen by System Data. It may be tens, of my hundreds, of GB that you can clear: How to Use Finder to Clear “System Data" on a Mac - User Tip
I'd copy all such file candidates to an external SSD disk and delete them from the internal disk (and make sure the external disk is backupped to another external SSD/HDD disk).
Then copy those actively used files back to the internal disk. ...and later copy again if you forgot some actively used file. I'd never know which file I might actively use later.
Or did I understand your problem correctly?
Mac storage full: How to delete unused files?
