How Much Free Storage Should You Have on Your Mac?
If your Mac suddenly starts running slowly or is taking too much time to start up, you may need to free up some space on your storage disk. This is one of the most common causes of Macs running slower than usual, which is why it’s essential to keep track of your storage usage.
But how much storage space should you keep free on your Mac? We’ve covered the numbers for you below.
How Much Storage Space Should You Keep Free on Your Mac?
You should keep a significant portion of your Mac startup disk empty, anywherefrom 5 to 20 percentof the total storage size of the drive. The percentage depends on your Macs’s usage. You’ll need to keep more storage space free if you use your Mac for processor-heavy tasks, such as video processing, gaming, and so on.
For example, if you have a 256GB SSD drive in your Mac, you shouldkeep at least 13GB freeat all times, preferably more.
Why Is It Essential to Have Free Storage Space on Your Mac?
There arevarious reasons to keep extra storage free on your Mac. Most importantly, this will prevent your Mac from slowing down due to insufficient storage space and will leave space for any temporary files that macOS needs to create. This becomes even more important when you’re working with graphic-intensive apps such as Adobe Premiere Pro.
Similarly, upgrading your Mac to a new version of macOS will be easier with more space, since you won’t be limited when trying to download the 12GB installer. You’ll also get fewer startup problems with your Mac, and loading times should be vastly improved.
How to Check the Free Storage on Your Mac
You can check the free storage on your Mac by selectingAbout this Macfrom theApplemenu in the top-left corner of your screen. Click onStorageto see a breakdown of your Mac’s storage usage.
Free Up More Space on your Mac
Freeing up storage on your Mac is usually easier said than done, since there is so much data you might want to keep! Fortunately, it is easy to offload data onto an external disk or use iCloud Drive to keep your data in the cloud. it’s possible to also use third-party solutions, such as Dropbox, to keep your data secure in another location, freeing up storage on your Mac.
Need to clear some storage on your Mac? Here are several ways to free up space in macOS and reclaim your drive space.
My iPhone does it all, but I still need my dumb phone.
Taming data is easier than it looks.
Lose your laptop without this feature, and you’ll wish you had turned it on.
Tor spoiled me forever.
Who asked for these upgrades?
