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.
Read full storyMac Storage Guides
How macOS actually uses your disk, what hides in it, and what is safe to remove.
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.
Read full storyThe 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.
Read full storyThe 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.
Read full storyReading 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.
Read full storyPurgeable 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.
Read full storyThe 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.
Read full storyA 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.
Read full storyWhere did my Mac storage go, and how to actually find out
macOS tells you storage is full but not what is filling it. Here is how to find the real occupants of your drive, in the order that reclaims the most space.
Read full storyYou have more node_modules than you think, and they are all still there
Every JavaScript project leaves a node_modules folder behind. Across a few years of work that is routinely 30 to 80 GB of code you will never run again.
Read full storyXcode quietly keeps 50 GB you will never look at
DerivedData, archives, device support files and simulator runtimes accumulate with nothing ever clearing them. Here is what each one is and which are safe to remove.
Read full storyDragging an app to the Trash does not uninstall it
macOS removes the app bundle and leaves everything else. Support files, caches and preferences from software you deleted years ago are still on the drive.
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