How to clean my drive on Macbook Pro

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Level 1

15 points

How to clean my drive on Macbook Pro

I have a 2013 Macbook Pro Retina 13" screen. It's starting to run a little slow. I have about 12 gigs available on the 120 gig SSD.

I actually have no idea as to the amount of junk that is on my computer just taking up space, but it's running a little slow so I was thinking of just completely clearing the SSD and starting from square one again.

I don't use the computer for anything but, e-mail, surfing, and I use Logic for music, but I have all of the music on an external drive, so if I cleaned the drive I certainly wouldn't lose much.

I do not have the original start up disks, I know I should but I don't as I have literally been traveling around the world since I bought the computer and have no idea as to where these disks could be.

I've deleted a lot of useless stuff but I cannot figure out what is taking up so much space on the hard drive.

How can I get this great computer back to it's original state. I'm still running 10.8.5, I believe that's Mountain Lion.

Just want it to be like it was. Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks,

Bob

MacBook Pro with Retina display, OS X Mountain Lion (10.8.2)

Posted on Aug 17, 2017 10:19 PM

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Answer 1

Kappy

Level 10

362,007 points

Aug 17, 2017 10:39 PM in response to bob.logan64

Your model did not come with restore DVDs. What you want to do is this:

Install Lion Through Yosemiteon a New HDD/SDD

Restart the computer and after the chime press and hold down the Command-Option-R keys until a globe appears. Wait patiently - 5-15 minutes - until the Utility Menu appears.
Select Disk Utility from the Utility Menu and click on the Continue button.
After Disk Utility loads select the drive (usually, this is the out-dented entry with the mfgr.'s ID and size) from the side list. Click on the Erase tab in Disk Utility’s main window. A drop-down panel will appear.
Set the partition scheme to GUID then click. Set the Format type to Mac OS Extended (Journaled.) Click on the OK button and wait for the process to finish. Quit Disk Utility and return to the Utility Menu.
Select Install OS X from the Utility Menu and click on the Continue button.

This should restore the version of OS X that came with the computer pre-installed. From here you can download and install Sierra: How to get macOS Sierra - Apple Support.

FWIW never allow free space on the drive drop below about 20% of the drive's capacity. If you get down to that point then you will need to free up space:

How to Free Up Space on The Hard Drive

You can remove data from your Home folder except for the /Home/Library/ folder.

Visit The XLab FAQs and read the FAQ on freeing up space on your hard drive.

Also, see Freeing space on your Mac OS X startup disk.

Free up storage space on your Mac.

See Where did my Disk Space go?.

Be sure to Empty the Trash to recover the space.

Replace the drive with a larger one. Check out OWC for drives, tutorials, and toolkits.

Use OmniDiskSweeper or GrandPerspective to search your drive for large files and where they are located.

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