The three free Windows disk analysers, and why one is far faster
WizTree reads the file table directly, which is the difference between a scan in seconds and one in minutes. All three compared honestly.
582 guides
Mac storage, explained.
What fills your disk, where it hides, and what is safe to remove. Every guide gives you a way to check it on your own Mac.
CCleaner on Windows does less than its reputation suggests
The best known PC cleaner, the open source alternative, and what both actually remove. With the free equivalents for each part.
Every free way to see what is filling a Windows drive, compared
Six free options, what each is genuinely good at, and the one question none of them answers.
The same full drive looks completely different on Windows and macOS
Both hide space, in different places, with different names. A translation table for anyone who uses both.
Your Mac is storing 30 GB of Apple asset packs, and you can see them
AssetsV2 holds downloadable system assets and it is enormous on a developer Mac. What is in it, what counts against your disk, and what can be removed.
Siri, dictation and dictionaries are several gigabytes of language data
On device language models are downloaded per language and kept. What each one is, which settings control them, and how much a language actually costs.
Finder builds a thumbnail for everything, and keeps them in one cache
Preview images for every file you have looked at accumulate in a system cache. Where it is, when to reset it, and what resetting costs.
Saved Application State is why apps reopen your windows, and it grows
macOS stores a snapshot of open windows and documents for every app. What is in the folder, what deleting it does, and when that is the fix.
Photos builds a face and scene index, and it is stored on your disk
The background process that recognises faces and scenes keeps its own cache. What it is, why it grows after an import, and why waiting is the fix.
Maps caches every place you have looked at, and it adds up quietly
The Maps data process keeps tiles and place data on disk. Where it is, what an offline map costs, and how to clear it without breaking anything.
Deleted photos stay on your Mac for 30 days, and count the whole time
Every Apple app with a Recently Deleted folder holds files for a month. Where those second bins are, and how to empty each one properly.
Your screensaver is a folder of 4K video, and it downloads more
Aerial wallpapers and screensavers are full video files stored locally, added to each time you preview one. Where they are and how to remove them.