What the Photos library is really holding
A Photos library is rarely just photos. Originals, edits, previews and a database sit inside one bundle, and only some of it is safe to touch.
830 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.
The mail attachments quietly stored on your Mac
Apple Mail downloads a local copy of every message and attachment it syncs. On an old account that is routinely several gigabytes nobody knew about.
The simulator runtimes and devices nobody deletes
Every iOS version you have ever simulated leaves a runtime behind, and every device you created keeps its own disk image. Both are several gigabytes each.
Time Machine is storing backups on the disk it is backing up
Backups live on the external drive, but Time Machine also keeps snapshots on the Mac itself. That is why a backup drive can be full and the Mac fuller.
Moving files to an external drive without breaking anything
Apple's advice is one line: move media to an external drive. Here is which things move safely, which must never be moved, and how to move a Photos library.
What more Mac storage actually costs, three ways
Paying iCloud monthly, buying a drive once, or reclaiming what you have. The prices are public, the trade-offs are not, and one of the three is free.
The iPhone backups quietly filling your Mac
Every iPhone and iPad you have plugged into this Mac may still have a full backup on it. Here is where they live and which are safe to remove.
The Homebrew cache that brew cleanup leaves behind
brew cleanup is not the whole story. The download cache and old versions in the Cellar survive it, and together they are usually several gigabytes.
Reading the Mac storage bar, category by category
The coloured bar in Storage settings is a summary, not a map. Here is what each segment counts, and why Documents is usually the misleading one.
Purgeable space, and why deleting files frees nothing
You removed fifty gigabytes and the Mac reports the same free space. Purgeable space is usually why, and local snapshots are usually the cause.
The safest order to free 100 GB on a Mac
Reclaiming real space is a sequence, not one action. This is the order that gives back the most for the least risk, with what to expect at each step.
A GrandPerspective alternative, and when to keep GrandPerspective
GrandPerspective is a good free treemap and worth keeping for what it does. Here is what it covers, what it does not, and when to want something else.