So you’ve had your Mac for a while, and things don’t feel as fresh and clean as they used to? Although Macs don’t require a lot of maintenance for cleaning, those temporary files, app leftovers, and system cache do accumulate. These files may slow down your machine and take up a lot of valuable space. In this article, we share quick and easy ways to clean up your MacBook. Let’s get started!
How to clean your Mac automatically
Here’s a simple diagram to explain the most common types of computer junk, sorted by size. Some of these, like Trash bin files, are easily reachable, while others are stored away in hidden system folders. Sadly, there’s no easy way to clear them up without special skills.
If you don’t feel like spending the next several hours cleaning your Mac manually, you can use a powerful cleaning tool CleanMyMac X to find and remove all the clutter your Mac contains. It knows which files are useless, how to find them and remove completely. CleanMyMac has everything to finish the 3-hour task of a Mac cleanup in under 5 minutes. It will even clean up the junk you didn’t know about and give your computer a speed boost.
The Steps to Reduce the file size in Macbook Air: Go to the Apple Tool Bar and select the file, tap on get Info and tap on Size you can view the file size and right click on it and select compress. And wait till the file is compressed. The steps in this article were performed on a MacBook Air in MacOS High Sierra. Once you complete the steps in this guide you will have created a new folder, with a folder name of your choosing, in an existing location on your Mac. We are going to create the folder on the desktop for the sake of simplicity, but you can open Finder and navigate. Make Finder Open in a Different Folder Than All My Files Make Finder Open in a Different Folder Than All My Files. New Macs show the All My Files directory by default when you launch Finder. Personally speaking I don't like that. Fortunately, there’s a way to change it. Go to Finder’s Preferences, select the General tab. File system corruption: If any of the system files get corrupted, it also causes your MacBook to crash. Software conflicts: It is rare but sometimes your software may also cause your MacBook to crash. Hardware damages: Damages to the hardware parts of your machine could also make it unbootable. How to Fix a Failed/Crashed/Dead MacBook? Step 6: How to Put the MacBook to Sleep and Turn Off MacBook 1) Press the power button to turn on your Mac or wake your Mac from sleep. 2) Press and hold the power button for 1.5 seconds while your Mac is awake to display a dialog asking if you want to sleep, restart, or shut down.
How to clean up system storage on Mac with CleanMyMac X:
- Download CleanMyMac X for free here.
- Run the app and go to System Junk.
- Click Scan.
- Press Clean to get rid of all junk.
Done! Now your Mac looks much better!
How to Clean Mac Hard Drive Manually
If you never performed an automatic or manual system cleaning — it means that your Mac has been collecting unnecessary files and clutter for years. You can quickly clean up your Mac with these easy steps.
1. Clean up cache
You’ve probably heard “Remove your cache” as a web browser troubleshooting tip. In fact, your Mac stores a lot of information in files called caches, allowing fast access to that data and reducing the need to get it from the original source again. Unfortunately, those files take a lot of space on your Mac, and instead of speeding the things up, they slow your computer down. Therefore, if you want to give your system a boost, clean your Mac from the cache files.
There are two ways to do that: you can delete them manually or use a MacBook cleaner like CleanMyMac X to do the job for you. Of course, the second way is an easy and fast one. However, if you decide to clean up the cache manually, check out a comprehensive guide on “How to Clear Cache on a Mac.”
2. Uninstall apps you don’t use
The applications you’ve installed on your Mac take up space, of course. And over time when your Mac becomes full of different apps, it may start running slowly. How to clean MacBook? In the first place, you need to remove the apps you no longer use or need. To do this, right-click on the app you want to remove and choose Move to Bin.
You may be surprised to find out that sending an app to the Trash will not uninstall it completely because the app leftovers still remain on your Mac taking up a lot of storage. So, if you want to be a responsible Mac user, you need to uninstall applications the right way. Here’s a step-by-step guide on “How to Uninstall Apps on a Mac.”
Extra step: Trim down your login items
Login items are applications that run automatically upon startup. Nowadays, every second app tries to become as prominent as possible and get into your Login Items. First of all, you may not even know what they are (not all of them appear in the Dock). Secondly, such apps consume memory. That's enough reasons to get rid of extra login items you don't need.
- Open System Preferences.
- Go to Users & Groups.
- Choose your nickname on the left.
- Choose the Login Items tab.
- Check startup programs you want to remove.
- Press the “–” sign below.
You’re done.
3. Clean out useless duplicates
Identical photos, music tracks you’ve added one time too many, saved and re-saved PDF files… all of that sits on your Mac and gobbles up storage. The storage that could be used for better purposes.
So how do you quickly weed them out? The fastest way is to use Gemini 2: The Duplicate Cleaner.
- Download and launch the app
- Click “Scan for Duplicates”, and watch as it quickly fetches them from different corners of your Mac.
- Once the scan is done, hit Review Results and check which copies you want to remove.
- Click Smart Cleanup to delete everything you’ve selected.
That's it. Now your Mac should be completely duplicate-free.
4. Empty the trash
Even though you’ve deleted the files, they reside in your Trash bin taking up a lot of storage on your Mac. They are just waiting to be removed completely. If you want your precious hard drive space back, you need to empty the Trash.
Here’s how to clean your MacBook from the trash:
- Click and hold on the Trash can icon in the Dock.
- Click Empty and then Empty Bin.
The process is quite simple, right? There is even a more effortless way to clear Trash. CleanMyMac X scans your Mac for junk and lets you remove all trashed files. To do that, launch CleanMyMac X and press Scan. When the scan is completed, click Review Details to see what exactly CleanMyMac X has found.
I’ve already cleaned Bin a couple of weeks before, but over some time, almost a gigabyte of trashed files has accumulated. Now, I can simply click Back to Summary and then Run to clean Trash and system junk.
5. Reduce clutter
Apple has already thought about the clutter that can be generated on the Macs and provided a possible solution. Here’s how to reduce clutter on your Mac:
- Go to the Apple menu.
- Choose About This Mac and then Storage. Here you can see how much free space is left on your computer.
- Then click Manage.
Here’re some recommendations for saving space on your Mac. You can choose Review Files to examine apps, documents, and other files that are stored on your Mac.
You can choose any file in every category (Applications, Bin, Documents, etc.) and click Delete to remove it and optimize space. Look through other recommendations and make the necessary changes to use your Mac’s space more efficiently.
6. Delete large and old files
It has always been a rule of thumb among computer geeks, that you should keep a minimum of 15-20% of free space on your main hard drive. This is just a rough estimation, but the more free space you have, the faster your Mac works. A computer magazine once performed a test on this, which concluded that the difference in speed can reach as much as 35%. If you work with heavy graphics or video rendering, even more free space is recommended.
How to have more free space? Delete large and old files.
The first way is totally manual and requires you to find them one by one, while for the second way, you just need to make two clicks and CleanMyMac X will do the job for you.
How to clean up Mac with CleanMyMac X:
- Download CleanMyMac X (a link to a free edition of the app)
- Launch the program.
- Go to the Large and Old Files section on the menu.
- Click Scan.
- Review the details, select what to clean and then click Clean.
That’s it!
7. Remove old iOS backups
Having your files backed up is a wonderful thing. But over time your Mac becomes overloaded with old backups that take gigabytes of storage on your hard drive. Architectural drawing software for mac. That’s why you should consider removing the old iOS backups you no longer need.
Each backup remains stored on your computer and is accessible via iTunes. To delete the old backups, you need to do the following:
- Choose the Apple menu and then select About This Mac.
- Go to the Storage tab and click Manage.
- Here, choose iOS Files.
- Select the backup you want to remove and click Delete.
- Confirm and you’re done!
That’s it! The backup files are gone from your Mac forever.
![Macbook Macbook](https://www.cisdem.com/resource/attach/file/images/check-mac-model-year-for-compatibility-with-macos-sierra.png)
8. Wipe out Language files
Unused language localizations take up about 1 GB of storage space. Mac applications come with language files for every language they support. It allows starting using the app in that language immediately. Cool, right? Not always. Just consider: when was the last time you used the app in Bengali or Korean? Since you don’t speak those languages, such files just waste space on your Mac. You need to remove the unnecessary language files and clean MacBook from that clutter.
How to delete the language files? Go to Finder > Applications, then right-click the app which language files you want to remove and choose Show Package Contents. Open the Resources folder and then find folders ending with “.lproj.” Every folder contains language files for one particular language. Note that for every app you should manually find and select the files to remove. But there is an automatic way to delete the language files that will save you tons of time — CleanMyMac X. Just download the application (for free) and it will do the job for you.
9. Delete old DMGs
Disk images (DMGs) often take up valuable space on your Mac. Here’s how to perform a Mac cleanup and get rid of those files:
- Open Finder and type “disk image” in the search bar.
- Then delete all files that have .dmg extensions. Don’t forget to remove them from Trash as well.
CleanMyMac X allows you to locate and delete DMGs quicker. With its System Junk module you can remove unused disk image in the single click of a button:
Just press Clean and it’s done!
10. Remove duplicates
Useless copies of your documents, files, and photos eat up your Mac’s precious space. Therefore, if you wonder how to clean up a Mac and boost its performance, try to delete the duplicates. Note that the process of finding and removing the duplicates requires either a lot of patience and time (if you decide to delete them manually) or a duplicate finder app. Whatever method you choose, make sure to check out this article on “How to Find Duplicates on Mac.”
11. Tidy up your desktop
Many people use Desktop as their primary destination for files. But this could be tricky because your OS treats every file on a desktop as an active window. When items on your desktop are too many, Finder gets substantially slower. This leads us to the most compelling advice in this article — cleaning up desktop does miracles!
Rather than just leaving every file on your desktop, organize them into folders. The latest macOS does that automatically thanks to the Stacks feature. You can also use Google Drive, Dropbox or any external storage device to save your files and keep your desktop tidy.
12. Clean your Mac’s keyboard
Our last but not least advice is to wipe your Mac’s keyboard. As you use your keyboard daily, it quickly gets dirty. Moreover, all those crumbs may live under the keys forever!
If you were wondering how to clean Mac’s keyboard, there are no special rules here. You can try blowing the dust and other particles out of your keyboard once in a while. Disinfecting wipes and alcohol-based sprays may also prove useful. Just choose the piece of fabric and wipe the keys gently to make them clean and shiny!
All in all, be careful with your system files. Don’t delete things you’re not sure about. If you are not completely confident that you can manage the task by yourself, better use a dedicated utility like CleanMyMac X to get a fresh and clean Mac in just two clicks. Here's the video describing quick tips to clean up your Mac:
Happy cleaning!
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The reasons why you want to restore your MacBook to factory settings are varied. Restoring MacBook is useful when you are experiencing certain issues with its performance, system errors, or virus attack. You also need to restore your MacBook before selling or donating. The process to restore MacBook is quite straightforward if you know all the steps. In this case, let’s learn how to reset a Mac to its factory settings without losing data.
- Part 2: How to Recover Mac Files Deleted After Factory Reset
1How to Restore MacBook Pro/Air to Factory Settings?
Restoring MacBook to factory settings is a straightforward process. What you should do before that is to back up your files in a different location before proceeding because it will erase all data stored on MacBook. Then the next step is to factory reset Mac OS X to original factory settings.
A. Backup Your Mac Before Resetting
One of the easiest and the most recommended ways to back up before resetting Mac is the built-in Time Machine feature of macOS. It was introduced with OS X 10.5 Leopard and many Mac users use it as a primary backup tool because it is great for both restoring your entire hard drive in case of a system crash as well as for recovering individual files you have accidentally deleted.
Follow these instructions to back up Mac via Time Machine:
Step 1. On your Mac, open the Apple menu and then find and click on the System Preferences > Time Machine.
Step 2. Next, click the Select Backup Disk option.
Step 3. Then navigate to the drive on your Mac which you would like to use as a Time Machine backup. Then Click on Use Disk.
It will start the backup process. Depending on the size of data your hard drive has, the process may take some time to complete. Or you can backup Mac to external hard drive/iCloud. Actually, AnyRecover also can function as backup tool.
B. Restore MacBook Pro/Air to Factory Settings
Factory reset a Mac by following these procedures:
Step 1. After backing up your important data, connect your MacBook to the power adapter and restart it. When the MacBook is restarting, hold down the 'Command' and 'R' button at the same time. Keep holding these buttons until the Apple logo appears on the screen. Once you see the logo, release both buttons immediately.
Step 2. If everything goes right, you will see the 'OS X Utilities' window on the screen. On that screen, click on the 'Disk Utility' option then Continue.
Step 3. Next, open the Erase tab and choose the primary drive of your MacBook.
Step 4. After that, click on Format and then click on the 'Mac OS Extended (Journaled)' option.
Step 5. Start the erasing process by clicking on the Erase button.
Step 6. Once the process is completed, close the Disk Utility window.
After then, just follow the built-in guide to reset your Mac: connect to the Internet and download the new Mac OS.
2How to Recover Mac Files Deleted After Factory Reset
If you didn't create a backup before resetting your MacBook to factory settings, then you will need to use a third-party data recovery tool in order to restore all your lost/deleted data after factory reset. It is recommended that you install AnyRecover Data Recovery for Mac. It supports all storage mediums and it can recover any kind of file after factory reset. Previewing the file before recovering with this tool when you want to perform selective data recovery.
Key Features- Allow you to retrieve any types of file. It supports data recovery of over 1000 file formats.
- You can easily recover deleted files via this tool no matter how they got deleted e.g. OS restore/reinstall, hardware failure, system crash, malware/virus attack, etc.
- It is a great option to aid you in the restoration of data into a MacBook Pro that has been restored to its factory settings.
- Support most storage mediums, including memory cards, hard drives, USB flash drives, digital cameras, smartphones, camcorders, and more.
- It is compatible with iMac, MacBook Pro, MacBook, MacBook Air, Mac Mini, Mac Pro, etc.
How to Recover Mac Files Deleted After Factory Restore with AnyRecover:
Step 1: Install AnyRecover on your MacBook and launch it. Select a location where your files were lost and click Start to start the scanning process for your MacBook.
Step 2: The software will automatically begin the scanning process. This can help you find lost data on your MacBook.
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Step 3: After several minutes, you'll be directed to the scanning results interface, select Recover button to get your lost files back.
Download opera mini for macbook air. Conclusion
Restoring MacBook Pro or Air is a straightforward process but it erases all data stored on the Mac. That's why you should create a backup first (via Time Machine) before restoring it to original settings.
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However, the built-in Time Machine feature may not be 100% effective and you may need the assistance of a third-party data recovery tool - iMyFone AnyRecover to recover your deleted/lost data from MacBook Pro. Simply install this tool on your Mac and use it to restore your desired files.