Whether you have a new Mac or old, but to maintain its performance, it is important to clean it up regularly.
As overtime, Mac accumulates lots of unused apps, temporary files, downloads, duplicates and megabytes of junk files. Undoubtedly, cleaning up the Mac is the last thing we like to do often. But these clutters up the disk space that not only take up a good amount of storage, but also raises performance issues. Eventually, your Mac will turn down slow.
Soon if you start to notice errors like storage full, file missing or not found, applications failed to install and many such. Even if you are about to update your Mac with macOS Monterey, then you should first clean up your Mac.
Its a good thing to regularly clean up your Mac to free up storage and to attain maximum performance.
So, here we are going to share easy tips on how to clean up your Mac. However, you may be aware that manually cleaning the system takes a lots of time and patience. And often, we don’t know which system files are still important to run apps smoothly or even they are not necessary.
But if you don’t want to spend too much of time in doing that, then you can also use a reliable Mac cleaning tool that will help do it in just few minutes.
Quick and Easy Ways to Clean up Your Mac
- Clean up cache
- Uninstall apps you don’t use
- Clean out duplicates
- Manage Storage Space
- Remove unwanted DMG Files
1# Clean up cache:
Cache are a kind of temporary files that the system generates for quickly loading the data, websites, quick access of data and eventually speed up the overall process of the system. But, we don’t need all the cache that our system accumulates all the time.
For example, the first time you visit any website, the system downloads all its necessary components like images and so. So as the next time, it improves the loading of the website. This happens same with apps, and system data itself. These cache files starts to accumulates lots of space, that sometimes becomes the reason of slow Mac.
So, it is important to regularly clean up cache, even if you were not doing it earlier.
But before actually start cleaning up the cache, you should know what are the types of cache on a Mac:
- System cache,
- User cache, and
- Browser cache.
How To Remove system cache on Mac?
System cache are files related to the in-built services and process of the Mac OS. These cache files generates slowly by the usage of your system. These files helps in quick loading of processes, improves the startup time and similar these.
The System cache files on Mac is stored within the “/Library/Caches”;
To check the System cache, follow these steps:
- Open Finder:
- Click Go > Go To Folder and then paste in “/Library/Caches” and press Go.
- Now, right-click on the Cache folder and click on “Get Info”, to see the folder size.
As mentioned above, the system cache files are necessary for the smooth performance of the system. And most often it does not take much storage. So, better not to play with those system cache files, if you are not aware of the system files and services.
If it is accumulated lots of storage space, then you should take the help of best Mac optimizer CleanMyMac X that will help you to safely delete system junk.
How To Remove User cache on Mac?
The user cache includes the application cache and the DNS cache. These cache can take up gigabytes of space. So, if you want to free up some storage then it is important to clean the user cache that accumulates from applications we use.
Cleaning user cache includes temporary files, leftovers, app junks, and lots of unnecessary files. You can clean user cache either manually by searching for the app folders and deleting the cache files or by using the Mac cleaner tool.
To clean the user cache manually, follow the steps below:
- Open Finder, click on “Go” and then select “Go To Folder”;
- Type “~/Library/Caches” and press GO;
- Now, you need to open every folder and delete the cache files. (It is recommended to delete the items and not the folders).
- Likewise, you can search for app cache for each app like Spotify, Steam or Adobe and so on. Each folder will contain cache for different apps like: com.steam.client.
- To remove app cache, open the app folder and, press Command-A to select all files and right-click on them and choose “Move to Trash”.
- After you have done the cache cleaning, then you should empty your trash to free up the disk space.
- Restart your Mac.
Once you restart your Mac, the system will automatically create new cache files that are necessary now.
How to clear browser cache on Mac?
Cleaning browser cache regularly not only frees up the space, but also secures the browser. The browser cache includes data whenever we visit any website, download any stuff, and so on. These are images, small scripts, clicks and many such.
Undoubtedly, browser cache helps faster loading of websites, but if browser cache not cleaned regularly, then it surely invites bad actors or phishing websites to collect them. Also, cleaning cache removes all unnecessary data that are no longer needed for your browsing.
How to clear Safari cache?
To clear cache in Safari, follow the steps below:
- From top menu, choose Safari;
- Click on Preferences;
- Next, choose “Advanced” tab and check the “Show Develop menu in the menu bar” option box;
- Then, go to “Develop” from the menu bar;
- Choose “Empty Caches”.
Sometimes, cleaning cache does not help improving the performance, so here’s 3 ways to reset safari without opening it. These helpful tips comes handy when you have less time to invest in system cleaning.
How to clear cache in Chrome browser?
To clear cache in Chrome, follow the steps below:
- Type or paste the following address in the search bar “chrome://settings” and press Return.
- Under the “Privacy and security” section, click “Clear browsing data.”
- Choose the options for cache deletion, avoid choosing (Password and other sign-in data);
- Also, from top, choose the timeframe from which you want to delete, like “All time” and other options. And click on “Clear data” button.
How to clear cache in Firefox?
To clear Firefox cache, follow the steps below:
- Type or paste about:preferences in the search bar ;
- Select “Privacy & Security” settings;
- Under “Cookies and Site Data” section, click the “Clear Data”;
- Also, check the option for “Cached Web Content” and click on “Clear” to confirm your choice.
How To clear browser cache automatically?
While, this seems a time taking actions to open every browser and clear out the cache, but you don’t have necessary to do that. Instead you can opt of an easy and quick way to delete cache from all browsers in one go.
- Open CleanMyMac X;
- Select “Privacy” module from the menu;
- Select the browser like Safari, Chrome, Firefox or others;
- Now, click on the options of cache deletion and click on “Remove”.
- Do the same with all the browsers.
2# Uninstall apps you don’t use:
Of course, the apps you install takes up most of the storage space on your Mac. However, lots of apps running may slow down the system. So, it is important to have a look on what apps you need and uninstall unnecessary apps.
To uninstall an app from mac, open the Application folder, right-click on the app and choose Move to Trash.
Although, this is not the right way to remove an app, because this will not remove its leftovers that is still taking up the storage space.
3# Clean out duplicates:
Although, deleting duplicate files is a time taking task, as we don’t how how much duplicates files our system has accumulated in the whole course of usage. But Mac has a built-in utility called “Smart Folders” that helps you search for files based on various criteria.
So, here how to find out duplicates on Mac:
- On Finder menu, click on “File”, and then select “New Smart Folder”;
- A new window will pop up, next click the “+” icon on the upper-right corner to start adding the search field;
- You will see “This Mac” as the default search location. But you can choose your preferred location too;
- Next, from the “kind” drop-down menu, choose the data and time range like Last Opened Date, Last Modified Date, Created Date, Name, Contents, and Others. Choosing “others” will open a new pop-up window to specify other filters;
- Now, choose the file type from the next drop-down menu like app, video, images, text and do on;
- Keep on customizing your search by clicking on “+” icon;
- After you have found out the duplicate files on Mac, now you can delete them.
4# Manage Storage Space:
Apple helps checking on what is taking up your space and also recommends on what you can do save some storage. This will help you to declutter your Mac and free up huge disk space.
Here’s how you can do it:
- Choose Apple menu;
- Select “About This Mac” and then click on Storage. The new pop-up window will show you how much space is left on your Mac;
- Now, click on “Manage”, to check in detail;
- You can review what’s consuming space on your Mac like apps, documents and other stuffs;
- Take your time, sort out things and click on the “Delete” whichever files you do not need.
- Also, from left menu, you should also check for old “iOS Files”;
- Select the old backup files you want to remove and click on “Delete”.
5# Remove unwanted DMG Files:
DMGs or Disk Image File are digital image of a physical disc that contains software installers. So, whenever you download any software it has .dmg extension. These files takes up lots of storage space on Mac. So, you should definitely get rid of unwanted DMG files while performing clean up on Mac.
- Launch Finder and type “.dmg” in the search bar.
- You will see all the files with .dmg extension. Now you can delete files which you don’t want.
- Don’t forget to empty your trash.
Conclusion:
Cleaning your Mac regularly important to keep is going smoothly and improve its performance. However, be cautious of what you are going to delete, if you are not sure then search it on internet, take help from family or friends and even a professional tool can help you do it.
