Map out new destinations from your desktop, with gorgeous 3D city views like Flyover, point-to-point directions, and comprehensive transit directions. Use Apple Pay to make purchases on the web in Safari with Touch ID on MacBook Pro and MacBook Air. Paying takes just a touch and is quick, easy, and secure. How to Clean my Mac on OS X El Capitan Vishal Updated on September 20, 2018 Clean my Mac 30 Comments You won’t regret cleaning pools of junk files from OS X El Capitan since cleaning Mac hard drive is a prolific activity and basic start of Mac optimization.
You need to change the premise of your SSD use. ? see here: Solid State Drive usage premise, or the “more space / upgrade SSD” question There have been questions posed and positions taken by many people who are trying to use their Macbook Air or Pro’s solid state drive (SSD) as a mass media storage device, for either pictures, videos, massive music collections or all three combined; but this should not be the working premise of a ‘limited’ SSD and its use. In which, it’s the case of those users with either 128GB, 256GB, or even 512GB of internal SSD space, that have or are running “out of space”, that questions are raised. The immediate premise of some users can sometimes be “(how to / if) upgrading my SSD” when in fact in nearly all instances another approach is the logical and sensible one that needs to be looked into and exercised. Any Macbook containing a SSD should be idealized as a ‘working platform’ notebook containing all your applications, documents, and weekly or bi-weekly necessary files.
All collections of media files such as pictures, music, and videos, unless directly needed should be kept off the notebook and on an external hard drive or likewise. While the ‘working platform’ premise is also the case with larger internal conventional hard drives of 1TB+, its implementation isn't as critical except in terms of data protection. Realistically, you should at most coordinate roughly 20 to 25% of your total SSD space to all audio-video personal use media (picture / music / video collections), leaving the remaining amount on an external HD. Nobody should consider any notebook a data storage device at any time under any circumstance, rather a data creation, sending, and manipulation device; and in the case of a SSD, this is more important for purposes of having sufficient working space on the SSD and reducing SSD ‘bloat’ in which cases someone is wrongly attempting to use the SSD space as a large media storage nexus. The rare exception to the collective usage and premise of SSD use in which a much larger SSD is truly needed are for those in video and photography professions that require both the extremely fast speeds of the SSD and the onboard storage for large and or many video and photography files. However this also falls under the premise of a ‘working platform’ for such peoples rather than the intent of many who are using the SSD as passive and static data storage for media files very infrequently needed or accessed.
All on-notebook data collections should be logically approached as to necessity, and evaluated as to whether it is active or passive data that likely doesn’t need to be on the notebook, allocations of space-percentages to as-needed work and use, apportioning space for your entertainment media, and questioning whether it should it be on the notebook for more than short-term consumption. Considerations should be made in the mind of any user in differentiating the necessary system data ( System hub) comprising the Mac OSX, applications, necessary documents that both must and should be on your internal SSD, and that of the users personal data (Data hub) comprising created files, pictures, music, videos, PDF files, data created or being created and otherwise, that likely unless being used soon or often should be parked on an external hard drive for consumption, or temporarily loading onto the internal SSD.
You both can and should purchase whichever SSD size you need or see fit, but even in the case of the largest of SSD, unless use-considerations are made, and SSD spaces are allocated as should be the case indicated above, one can easily and immediately run into this quandary of “needing more internal SSD space”, in which instance a different approach in usage must then be implemented. However it is almost always the case, that such large media files are wanted to be stored internally rather than actually needed, in which case the external HD is both prudent as well as necessary. Additionally costs per MB are infinitely less on an external HD than an internal SSD in any consideration of data expansion needs. A Professional Example In the case of a Macbook Air or Macbook Pro Retina with ‘limited’ storage on the SSD, this distinction becomes more important in that in an ever rapidly increasing file-size world, you keep vital large media files, pics, video, PDF collections, music off your SSD and archived on external storage, for sake of the necessary room for your system to have free space to operate, store future applications and general workspace.
➕You should also never be put in the position of considering “deleting things” on your Macbook SSD in order to ‘make space’. This is especially what your external HD is for.
Professionals who create and import very large amounts of data have almost no change in the available space on their notebooks internal SSD because they are constantly archiving data to arrays of external or networked HD. Or in the case of the consumer this means you keep folders for large imported or created data and you ritually offload and archive this data for safekeeping, not only to safeguard the data in case your Macbook has a SSD crash, or gets stolen, but importantly in keeping the ‘breathing room’ open for your notebook to operate, expand, create files, add applications, for your APPS to create temp files, and for general operation. Slim USB3 1TB external hard drive External Hard Drives External hard drives are both extremely cheap and regardless of the size of your internal SSD (or even internal hard drive if the case), you need an external hard drive with your SSD equipped Macbook for several reasons: 1.
Data backup and protection. Redundancy for important data. Necessitated ideal space for large media files for collections of pictures, videos, and music etc. While ever changing in price, typical portable 2.5” external hard drives in USB3 run roughly $65 for 1TB or $120 for 2TB small portable USB3 hard drives. Such drives range in thickness between 5mm and 15mm, with recent improvements in storage of 500GB drives in 5mm profiles. There is almost no premise in which a small 12mm thick 1 Terabyte USB hard drive cannot be taken along with any Macbook as an external large storage extension inside any Macbook carry case or pouch.
Typically such external HD profiles are not much bigger than a deck of cards. External hard drives are a foregone necessity for purchase with any Macbook for at the very least Time Machine backups, data redundancies, and ideally for large media storage. Apple Footer. This site contains user submitted content, comments and opinions and is for informational purposes only.
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As we use desktop and laptop computers, we tend to fill up our hard drives with stuff we've collected over the years. It's like an attic, basement, or garage that slowly fills up over the years. Some stuff gets used often, other stuff sits in a box gets forgotten about. Eventually, though, the clutter becomes too much and you have to start getting rid of things.
But how do you sort the import stuff from the trash? That's where Optimized Storage comes in.
Optimized Storage takes files you've been storing in iCloud and moves them off of your computer if your local storage gets too full. It also leaves behind an icon of the item that has been removed so that, when you finally do want to access it again, you don't have to go somewhere different to find it. You can just click on the file and it will download back onto your computer. There are four features to Optimized Storage that you can enable separately or all together.
You can Store in iCloud, Optimize Storage, Empty Trash Automatically, and Reduce Clutter. How to access Optimized Storage There are two ways to access Optimized Storage. The first is easy. Do nothing until your storage gets full. When it does, you'll get a notification asking if you want to optimize your storage.
Click Yes to be directly taken to the Optimized Storage tool window. To access Optimized Storage manually:. Click on the Apple icon in the upper left corner of your screen. Select About this Mac from the drop-down menu. Click on the Storage tab in the System Information window. Click on Details. This opens up the four Optimized Storage tools, which are on the right side of the window.
How to use Store in iCloud Store in iCloud allows you to store older Messages in the cloud, freeing up space on your hard drive. Messages stay on your hard drive until your hard drive starts to get full. When you're running out of room, Messages will automatically be stored in iCloud and only recent attachments will stay on your Mac for quick and easy access. Click on Store in iCloud in the Store in iCloud section of the window. Click on Store in iCloud again to confirm that you want to enable the feature to automatically store Messages in iCloud when your hard drive gets full. How to stop syncing Desktop and Documents folders in iCloud on your Mac If you've tried out but decided you don't like it, you can stop syncing. If you disable syncing, Desktop files will no longer appear on a secondary Mac computer's desktop, but they will still be in a file in iCloud Drive, which you can move them out of.
Your Documents folder will also still be visible in iCloud Drive, which you can also move. Click the Apple icon in the upper left corner of your Mac's screen. Click System Preferences in the drop-down menu. Click on iCloud. Click on Options next to iCloud Drive. Click to uncheck the checkbox for Desktop & Documents Folders.
How to use Optimize Storage Optimize Storage relates to storing media in the cloud that is not necessarily already in your iCloud storage, specifically movies and TV shows you have already watched on iTunes. When you select Optimize Storage, it will remove these files from your computer.
If you want to watch them again, you can redownload them from iTunes. It also gives you the option to store your email attachments. You can set it up so that recent email attachments are stored on your Mac, or you can store all of your email attachments in the cloud and download files that you need when you need them. Click on Optimize. In the Optimize Storage section of the window. Click on Optimize again to confirm that you want to enable the feature to automatically remove iTunes movies and TV shows that you've already watched.
How to disable Optimize Storage on your Mac Optimize Storage automatically removes iTunes movies and TV shows that you've already watched from your Mac. It also only keeps recent email attachments on your Mac when your hard drive starts to run out of room. If you want to keep your movies and TV shows on your hard drive so you don't have to re-download them everytime you want to watch them, you can disable the feature. Click the Apple icon in the upper left corner of your Mac's screen. Select System Preferences from the drop-down menu. Click on iCloud. Click on Options next to iCloud Drive.
Click to uncheck the checkbox at the bottom of the window for Optimize Mac Storage. Click on Done when you are finished. How to use Empty Trash Automatically It is pretty common for the average computer user to forget to empty the trash bin regularly. Just like a real garbage can, trash can start to add up.
Unfortunately, unlike a garbage can, your Mac's trash bin doesn't get full, so you don't realize you've been stocking up digital waste for months and months. Empty Trash Automatically will enable a tool that will erase items that have been in the Trash for more than 30 days. You don't even have to think about it anymore.
Click on Turn On in the Empty Trash Automatically section of the Optimized Storage window. Click Turn On again to confirm that you want to enable the feature to automatically erase files that have been in the Trash for more than 30 days.
How to disable Empty Trash Automatically on your Mac If you worry that you are going to delete something from your Mac and need it back more than 30 days later, you can disable the feature and go back to manually emptying the trash. Open a Finder window. Click on Finder in the upper left corner of your Mac's screen. Click Preferences in the drop-down menu.
Click on Advanced in the Finder Preferences window. Click to uncheck the checkbox for Remove items from the Trash after 30 days. How to use Reduce Clutter Reduce Clutter is the one feature in Optimized Storage that requires you to manually clean files on your Mac. The list of categories on the left side of the Optimized Storage window represent the folders that tend to store files that are older and can be removed from your Mac. You can either click on Review Files in the Reduce Clutter section of the Optimized Storage window or select a Folder from the list on the right side of the window.
You can then go through the files individually and decide whether you want to keep or remove them from your Mac. For example, in the Applications folder, you can view apps on your Mac by type.
![Clear Clear](http://cdn.osxdaily.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/01/other-storage-mac-os-x.png)
Older versions of apps you are currently using can sometimes take up dozens of GB of space. You can delete the files right from the Optimized Storage window.
How to optimize your photo storage if you have iCloud Photo Library Photos on the Mac optimizes storage by letting you store full-resolution photos and videos in iCloud instead on your internal hard drive. Even if you don't want to in iCloud, you can keep your photos safe, while freeing up space on your hard drive. Your photos will also remain on your Mac's hard drive until it starts to get full, at which point, photos and videos — starting with the oldest — will be removed from your Mac and only stored in iCloud. Photos and videos tend to take up a lot of space.
You may find you don't have enough iCloud storage to keep your entire photo library in iCloud. You can to a larger plan if you are running out. Any questions? Do you have any questions about what Optimized Storage is or how to use the tools?
Let me know and I'll help you out. Updated September 2018: Updated to reflect changes to what is stored in iCloud.