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How to see what’s using your Mac’s storage

Storage settings show how full your disk is, which kinds of files take the most space, and the large files you can remove.

· Sources

On this page

macOS has a Storage page in System Settings. It shows how much space is used, what is using it, and lets you delete files from most categories.

Open Storage settings

  1. Choose Apple menu › System Settings.
  2. Click General in the sidebar. You may need to scroll down.
  3. Click Storage.

The bar at the top shows used and free space, split by app and file type. Click All Volumes to see a bar for each volume and container on the internal disk.

On macOS Monterey 12 or earlier, choose Apple menu › About This Mac, then click Storage.

Source: Apple Support, Change Storage settings on Mac (opens in a new tab) and Free up storage space on Mac (opens in a new tab).

Read the categories

Below the bar, Storage lists its categories and the space each one uses. A category with an Info button opens a list you can manage.

CategoryWhat it holds
ApplicationsApps you installed. Apps that come with macOS aren’t counted here
DocumentsFiles in your home folder that aren’t in another category, such as PDFs and Pages documents
iCloud DriveFiles stored in iCloud Drive, which can include your Desktop and Documents folders
iOS FilesBackups and firmware for iPhone and iPad
TV, Music, Books and PodcastsPurchases you can remove now and download again later
MailEmails and their attachments
MessagesConversations, including attachments
Music CreationContent from GarageBand, Logic and MainStage
PhotosYour System Photo Library
TrashItems you deleted but haven’t erased yet

Source: Apple Support, Change Storage settings on Mac (opens in a new tab).

Find your largest files

Documents is the quickest place to find big files you forgot about.

  1. In Storage, click the Info button next to Documents.
  2. Click the button for large files, or the one for downloads, to see just those.
  3. Click Size at the top of the list to put the biggest files first. You can also sort by Name, Kind or Last Accessed.

To see which folders use the most space, click File Browser.

Source: Apple Support, Find and delete files on your Mac (opens in a new tab).

Delete what you don’t need

  1. Click the Info button next to a category.
  2. Select a file you no longer need.
  3. Click Delete. To look at the file in the Finder first, click Show in Finder.

Some categories open the app that owns the files instead, so you delete them from inside that app.

Source: Apple Support, Find and delete files on your Mac (opens in a new tab).

The categories you can’t open

Three categories only show their size. You can’t pick files from them here.

  • Other Users & Shared holds files that other accounts on this Mac created, changed or shared.
  • macOS is the system itself, including apps such as Mail, Terminal and Calculator.
  • System Data holds files that don’t fit any other category, such as logs, caches and fonts. macOS manages it. See what System Data means for what you can do about it.

Source: Apple Support, Change Storage settings on Mac (opens in a new tab).

Sources

Every source was checked on 11 October 2026, against macOS 27.

Disk Census scans the whole disk, System Data included, and tells you which items are safe to delete, which to check first and which to keep.

See how Disk Census works

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