Full Hard Drive

If you get a warning, or just checked and saw that your hard drive was nearly full, there are a few ways to get rid of extra files and clear up some space.

1. To make sure you're actually out of disk space and to do an initial clean up, click on the apple logo on the top left, and then go to "About this Mac".

2. Once opened, click on the "Storage" tab and wait till your disk has been analyzed.

I'm not out of space yet, but I could free up some, so lets do an initial clean up. Just click "Manage" and you'll have a whole list of ways to clean up files.

After you've done this, there are a few more ways to save space:

1. Go through downloads and trash to clear unneeded files:

We usually have a ton of files in our downloads and trash that we don't need so getting rid of those will free up a bit of space. Open up finder and go to downloads, highlight all the files you don't need, right-click, and move the files to trash.

After you've gone through all your downloads and deleted anything, make sure to clear your trash file, where there are even more files you don't need, by right-clicking on the trash bin.

2. Organize your desktop.

An unorganized desktop with files you don't use or need can actually use a bit of space. Simply delete or move files that you no longer need or use and remember to clear your trash after deleting files.

3. Use an external drive to store unused files.

If you have files that you want to keep, but just don't use anymore, like old papers, projects, or photos; an easy way to get clear the space is to move them to a flash/thumb drive. Just plug in your external drive, open finder, then drag the files you don't use into the external drive. After that, you can eject the drive, delete the original files from your computer, and finally clear your trash.

After taking 15 minutes to do these simple steps, I have cleared over 40GB of space... worth it.