While the new 2020 MacBook Air will come out with a 256GB hard drive, even this amount of space is often not enough for all those photo collection, high definition videos and designs that many of us store on our laptops. While a solid-state drive gives you the fastest speeds and maximum storage, this option is not always affordable or even available with a MacBook Air. Cloud servers and external hard drives may also be an option when it comes to increasing your digital storage space, but they too can be expensive and also require carrying around extra equipment or investing in a variety of different back-up systems.
If you are looking for some simple ways to free up your disk space without laying out any more cash , here are some things you can do:
Check What’s Using Up Your Space
Before you can determine how best to free up the disk space on your MacBook Air, you’ll want to discover what is using up all that space in the first place. Use the Apple menu in the top left corner of your screen and navigate to “About this Mac” and then “Storage” for a breakdown on what files are taking up the most space. Here you can see if you have large photos, videos or apps that are taking up space on your computer and can start manually removing those files you don’t need or rarely use. Deleting unused apps will also help to clean up the disk space on your computer.
Delete Those Downloads
Most people’s download folder is awash with large unused files. Old photos , unused documents, one-watched videos and large zip files all hide away in your downloads folder chopping up space. You will probably also find a number of items hanging around in the downloads folder that have since been saved elsewhere. Be sure to clean out your downloads folder regularly to get rid of these unwanted and duplicate files.
What Mail?
If you use Mac Mail you may also find that this particular app is taking up quite a bit of space on your computer. As with your downloads folder, be sure to regularly clean out your mail, deleting old emails and conversations that you no longer need to ensure that they don’t take up unnecessary space on your computer. If you’re mails take up a lot of space and you don’t want to delete anything you may want to consider moving onto a cloud-based mail software system.
Get Rid Of Your Junk Files
While it may seem obvious, so many people forget to empty the trash when getting rid of large files on their computer. After you have done this you can also clean up your Mac using one of a variety of free cleaner apps available on the internet, or you can check this site if you would rather have some fun instead. This software will scan your Mac for any system junk and unused files, emptying trashes to remove superfluous files and free up much needed disk space on your MacBook Air.