Effective Mac cleanup guide to help you reclaim over 50 GB fast

Every Mac user knows that reclaiming space is tricky and a challenge most of the time. That’s especially true when we are talking about 30-50 GB. But it’s definitely doable, even if you have 1 TB of space.

There’s a lot of unnecessary stuff on your device that you might not know about. And it comes down to figuring out how to reclaim that space properly. Here are some tips to help.

Uninstall apps

Remove apps that you’re not using at all. Those might end up requiring quite a bit of space, and it’s wasted space since you don’t need them at all. A good idea is to remove those and also delete their remaining files from the Library folder. It’s very useful, and it has the potential to improve your free space in no time.

Use a cleanup tool

It’s very important to try and clean up your Mac with a dedicated software tool as well. Cleanup tools are great because they offer automated cleaning. You start the app, press a button and it does all the cleanup for you.

Granted, you can do this manually, but it can take a lot of time. And it’s very easy to forget about various tasks that you would normally need to do, so addressing that can be a game changer.

Clear the system data storage

The System Data storage is basically the stuff that your system keeps on your Mac. It includes temporary files, cache, app leftovers, backups, browser extensions and so on. In this guide to clean up your Mac it’s imperative to cover these as well.

Thankfully, you can clear the system data storage pretty easily. Open the Finder window and then press Command+Shift+G. Paste the Library and System paths, and there you want to delete files that are not necessary, mostly from apps that you are not using or which are not installed anymore.

Delete your older DMG files

DMG files are good for installing apps, but that’s very much it. You don’t need to keep them, because if you need to reinstall the app, you can just download the DMG back. Maybe keep 1-2 if you really need those apps nearby.

But most DMGs will be unnecessary. So what you need to do is to enter your Finder, and in there you want to type in DMG. And then you delete the DMG files, keeping only the ones that you really want. Rest assured that it can help you save a few GB just from doing that.

Remove old backups

Some of us have older backups on our devices, and they can eat up a ton of space. Again, the best approach is to try and remove these old backups if you can. Enter the System Settings/General/Storage and click the I next to the iOS files.

Here you want to select the backup you want to remove and you will be good to go. It’s a nifty tool for sure, and it will help you remove files without any concerns. It works extremely well and you will be very happy with how much space you can save.

The same thing can be said if you delete unnecessary Downloads. Enter the Downloads folder and rest assured that you can find tons of unwanted stuff there. From documents to DMG files and so on, it’s all clutter that doesn’t need to be there.

You might need some files, sure, so try and sift through them if you want. And then you just delete the stuff you don’t want.

Delete old files

Generally, old files have no need to be on our device. We might keep some stuff for nostalgia, or we think that we might need it eventually. But a lot of the time, we don’t really need that at all.

So the best approach is to try and remove the old files to the best of our capabilities. It works very well because you can delete old files fast, and it will give you the much-needed assistance and help that you are in dire need of.

Empty the trash

It seems the obvious thing to do, but a lot of people don’t realize they have to do such a thing. And rest assured that forgetting about it consumes a lot of storage space that could be used otherwise.

The best thing you can do is to empty the trash every time you are deleting something. Or maybe at the end of a Mac user session you just empty the trash and that’s it. 

Conclusion

We highly recommend following these tips if you want to reclaim over 50 GB of storage. It might not seem like much at first, but reclaiming storage is great, and it can give you the much-needed help that you are looking for.

Yes, there are obvious challenges that arise, but in the long term, the best thing that you can do is to follow our guidelines. They work great, and can help boost your Mac’s performance as well.