While deleting older emails or junk mail is one way to clean it up, another way is to use the web version of email providers such as Gmail instead. The Mail app also takes up a fair bit of storage. Users can also delete any Apple apps that they might not require, such as iMovie, Pages, Keynote, and Numbers. An easy way to free up a few GBs is by clicking on the Applications folder within System Information and then deleting any unsupported apps. There are a few other things users can try to free up storage. From the storage management tool, click on Photos, then Turn on iCloud Photos and finally Store in iCloud to enable this.

Similarly, if Photos are taking up too much storage, turning on iCloud Photos will store the original high-resolution files in the cloud, and keep optimized files on the Mac when storage runs low. Users will also need to click on the Music Creation folder inside System Information and then on Remove GarageBand Sound Library to free up an additional 2.4GB of space. Just deleting the app from the Applications folder isn't enough. GarageBand, for example, takes up over 4GB of storage on a Mac. Users can also click on the left sidebar in System Information to see what else is taking up space. Other options include optimizing storage by automatically removing watched movies and TV shows from Apple TV, emptying the bin automatically every 30 days, and reviewing all large documents stored on a Mac. Before choosing this option, it's important to make sure that an iCloud+ plan with enough storage has been purchased. Users can click on Store in iCloud to transfer documents, photos, and messages to the cloud. The Recommendations window will display suggestions on how to quickly free up storage space. Now click on Manage, which will open up the System Information tool, and wait a few minutes while the Mac calculates the storage taken up by various folders.

Click on the Storage tab to see how much free storage is available. This can be accessed by clicking on the Apple menu at the top left corner of the screen, and then on About This Mac. The easiest way to check what's taking up space on a Mac is by using Apple's inbuilt storage management tool. Related: Mac Slowing Down? How To Find Which Apps Are Using The Most Memory For instance, macOS Monterey needs at least 26GB of free space, while those upgrading from older releases need at least 44GB of storage to install the update. Apple's macOS system updates also need a fair bit of free space to be installed. It may also become impossible to download larger files. Apps that save temporary files on a Mac may begin to get sluggish when there isn't free space. While the Mac still remains functional, it can begin to slow down if there isn't enough available storage.

When a Mac's storage is close to full, Apple will begin displaying warning messages asking users to free up space.

How to manage storage on macbook air