How to Declutter Your Mac: 10 Best Ways

I used to ignore the clutter on my Mac until it started slowing everything down. I had to find a fix. After trying a few things, I found the best ways to clean it up and boost performance. In this post, I’ll share those tips to help you declutter and speed up your Mac.

10 Best Ways to Declutter Your Mac

Below, I’ve shared the ten best ways to declutter your Mac:

1. Clean Up Your Desktop on Mac

Cleaning up your desktop on a Mac is a quick first step in decluttering. A cluttered desktop makes it hard to find what you need and can also slow down your Mac. Here’s how I clean up my desktop on Mac:

1. 🗑️ Delete Unnecessary Files: Start by removing files, folders, and apps you no longer need. Drag them to the Bin or right-click and select Move to Bin.
2. 📁 Create a Folder System: Organize your remaining items into folders. Right-click the desktop, select New Folder, and categorize your files (e.g., Work, Photos).
3. 📂 Use Stacks for Automatic Organization: Enable macOS’s Stacks feature to automatically group files by type (e.g., images, documents). Right-click the desktop and select Use Stacks for instant organization.

2. Remove Large and Old Files

Identify and delete large or old files that take up valuable space and slow down your Mac. Here’s how to remove large and old files on your Mac:

1. Open Finder and go to your home folder. You can do this by clicking the Finder icon in the Dock or pressing Command ⌘ + Shift ⇧ + H on your keyboard.

2. Click the search icon in the top right corner and type something.

3. A small plus icon will appear under the search bar. Tap the little + icon.

4. In the first field, select File Size from the drop-down menu.

5. Select is greater than in the second field.

6. Type your desired file size range in the third field.

7. Select a file size from KB, MB, and GB in the fourth field.

8. Press Enter to run the search. Review the files that appear in the search results. Identify any unneeded files or the ones taking up a lot of space.
9. To delete a file, select it and drag it to the Bin, or right-click it and select Move to Bin.

3. Clear Out Your Downloads Folder

Here’s how to delete downloads on your Mac:

1. Open the Downloads folder by opening a Finder window and selecting Downloads from the sidebar.

2. Go through each file and decide whether you need it or not.
3. Move the files you want to keep to a more organized location, like a folder within your Documents folder.
4. Delete unnecessary files by dragging them to the Bin or right-clicking them and selecting Move to Bin.

5. Once you’ve deleted unnecessary files and moved important files to a new location, empty the Bin to permanently delete the files from your Mac.

6. If you want to automatically empty the Bin, go to System Settings > General > Storage and tap the Turn On button next to Empty Bin automatically.

4. Uninstall Unused Apps

Uninstalling unused apps on your Mac can declutter your system and improve its performance. Here’s how to uninstall apps on Mac:

1. Open Finder and go to Applications.

2. Drag the app you want to uninstall to the Bin or right-click and select Move to Bin.

3. Empty Bin to delete the app permanently.

5. Use macOS Storage Management

Use macOS’s built-in storage management tools to get a clear overview and manage storage effectively. Here’s how to use the storage management tool on Mac:

1. Click the Apple logo and select System Settings.

2. Click General and select Storage.

3. Here, you’ll get a quick overview of how your storage is being used.

4. Below that, you’ll see personalized recommendations for freeing up space. These include enabling iCloud Photo Library and emptying the Bin automatically.

5. Explore each section (Applications, Documents, iCloud Drive, etc.) to see specific files and their sizes. This detailed view makes it easier to identify large files or apps you no longer need.

6. Then, delete files directly from Storage Management by clicking them and selecting Delete.

6. Remove Duplicate Files

Duplicate files take up unnecessary space on your Mac. Here’s how to use Smart Folders on your Mac to find and remove duplicate files:

1. Open Finder on your Mac, click the File menu, and select New Smart Folder.

2. Click the + icon in the upper-right corner of the New Smart Folder window.

3. Set the search parameters for finding duplicate files. For instance, if you want to access duplicate image files on your Mac, select Kind as the first condition, Image as the second, and PNG as the third.
4. Click the + sign again, select Name, choose is, and type in copy.
5. Click Save to save the search results as a Smart Folder.

6. Specify a name and location for your Smart Folder and tap the Save button.

7. Review the search results and delete the duplicate files.

7. Store Files in iCloud

Storing files in iCloud is another effective way to free up space on your Mac while keeping your documents accessible and secure. Here’s how to use iCloud on Mac:

1. First, set up your iCloud on your Mac. To do this, go to System Settings, click Apple ID, and select iCloud. Then, sign in with your Apple ID if you haven’t already.

2. In the iCloud settings, choose which types of data to sync and store, like Photos, Documents, and Desktop folders. This automatically uploads these files to iCloud, making them accessible across all your Apple devices.

3. Toggle on the Optimize Mac Storage switch. It will keep less frequently used files in iCloud, downloading them only when needed.

8. Clean Junk Files

Cleaning junk files is an important part of decluttering your Mac. Here’s how to clean junk files on your Mac:

1. 🗑️ Delete Cache Files: Cache files from both your system and applications can accumulate and take up a lot of storage over time. To delete them, go to Finder > Go > Go to Folder, type ~/Library/Caches, and remove unnecessary cache folders. This helps free up space without affecting essential files.
2. 🛠️ Clear Leftover App Files: Even after uninstalling applications, some files may remain on your Mac. These residual files can be manually deleted by checking the Library > Application Support folder. Removing these leftover files helps clear additional space.
3. 🧹 Delete User Log Files: User log files can build up over time, consuming storage space. You can find and delete these logs in ~/Library/Logs. Regularly clearing these logs can help keep your Mac running smoothly.
4. 🗃️ Remove System Logs: System logs are another source of clutter. You can delete these in /var/log to free up space, but be cautious not to remove essential system files.
5. 🌐 Delete Unused Language Files: Many apps come with multiple language files that you might not need. You can use third-party tools like Monolingual to remove these unused language files, freeing up extra storage.

9. Empty the Trash

Permanently delete files by regularly emptying the Trash to free up disk space. Follow these steps to empty the Trash on your Mac:

1. Open the Bin from the Dock.

2. When you open the Bin, you’ll see a small Empty button in the top-right corner. Click it.

3. Click Empty Bin on the prompt, and it will delete everything from your Trash.

10. Remove Login Items

Here’s how to remove login items on your Mac:

1. Go to the Apple menu and select System Settings.

2. Click General and select Login Items.

3. Select the application you want to remove and click the – button below the list.

4. Repeat this process for all the applications you want to remove.

Declutter Mac and Enhance Productivity

Now that you know how to declutter your Mac, you may want to learn more about improving its performance to increase your productivity. Here are some tips to keep your Mac in tip-top shape and use it to its fullest:

• Organize files on your Mac to keep everything easily accessible and in place.
• Clean up your Mac regularly to prevent junk from piling up and slowing down your system.
• Free up space on your Mac hard drive by deleting unnecessary files and apps to keep it running smoothly.

Frequently Asked Questions