How to Declutter Your Mac: 11 Best Ways

The struggle of a slow, cluttered Mac is real! I’ve been dealing with a mess of files slowing down my Mac and thought its time to clean up my system. Over the years, I’ve gathered a few tips to declutter MacBook to improve its performance and make it easy to find things. I thought it’d be helpful to put these tips together in an easy guide. So, here’s what I’ve learned about decluttering your Mac and making it more efficient.

11 Best Ways to Declutter Your Mac

If you’re feeling overwhelmed by the clutter on your Mac, there are plenty of ways to declutter and optimize your system. Below, I’ve shared the 11 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 not only makes it hard to find what you need but can also slow down your Mac. Here’s how I clean up my desktop on Mac:

1. 🗑️ Start with a Clean Slate: Delete files and folders you no longer need. Start by removing unnecessary icons, like apps, files, or folders, from your desktop. Drag them to the Bin or right-click them and select Move to Bin.

2. 📁 Create a Folder System: Make folders for your remaining desktop items. Right-click your desktop and select New Folder. Name the folder something descriptive, like Work or Photos.

3. 💻 Sort and Simplify: Drag your desktop items into the appropriate folder. Only keep the files and folders you use frequently on your desktop.
4. 🗃️ Arrange Everything: Once you’ve organized your desktop items into folders, arrange the folders in a way that makes sense. You can drag them around to different parts of your desktop and arrange them in a grid, list, or fan view.

5. 🌄 Set a Clean Wallpaper: Finally, set a desktop background that isn’t too cluttered or busy. This will help you focus on your work and keep your desktop looking organized.

2. Declutter Your Desktop Using Stacks

If you prefer an automated approach to decluttering your Mac desktop, use Stacks – a built-in macOS feature. It automatically organizes files on your desktop into stacks based on file types. You can use Stacks to organize similar files, like images, documents, and downloads.

To enable Stacks, follow these steps:

1. Right-click your desktop and select Use Stacks.

2. This will sort your individual files automatically into stacks.

3. You can click each stack to see what’s inside.

4. To close a stack, click the Stack Title.

3. Remove Duplicate Files Using MacKeeper

Duplicate files take up unnecessary space on your Mac but identifying and deleting duplicates manually is tedious. So, I always use MacKeeper. With MacKeeper’s Duplicates Finder, you can easily find and delete duplicate files to declutter your Mac and free up valuable storage space.

To remove duplicate files on Mac using MacKeeper, follow these steps:

1. Download and install MacKeeper on your Mac.
2. Open MacKeeper and click the Duplicates Finder feature.

3. Click Start Scan to scan your Mac for duplicate files. This may take a few minutes, depending on the size of your Mac’s storage.

4. Once the scan is complete, select an item from the list of categories on the left-hand side to review duplicate files.

5. Review the list of duplicate files. Select individual files to view them in more detail or click Check All to choose all duplicates. Then, click Remove Selected.

6. Click Remove on the pop-up window.

7. This will delete the selected files, and you can click Continue to complete the process.

4. Clear Out Your Downloads Folder

The Downloads folder on your Mac can quickly become cluttered with files you don’t need or no longer use. Regularly clearing out your Downloads folder and organizing your files on Mac can prevent clutter from building up over time.

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.

5. Remove Large and Old Files

Large files can take up valuable storage space on your Mac and make it difficult to find the files you actually need. By regularly removing large and old files, you can declutter your Mac and help it run more smoothly.

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.

6. Uninstall Unused Apps

Unused apps take up space on your Mac and slow down its performance. Even if you’re not actively using them, they can consume system resources and affect your Mac’s speed and responsiveness.

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.

You can also use MacKeeper’s Smart Uninstaller to remove unwanted files and declutter your Mac. Here’s how:

1. Download and install MacKeeper on your Mac.
2. Open MacKeeper and click Smart Uninstaller in the left sidebar under Cleaning.

3. Click Start Scan.

4. When the scan completes, Applications in the left sidebar, select the unused apps, and click Remove Selected.

5. Tap Remove on the pop-up window.

6. This will delete the selected apps from your Mac, and you’ll get a Removal Completed notification. Click Rescan to start the scan again.

7. Use macOS Storage Management

Using macOS storage management is a smart way to keep track of and manage the storage on your Mac. It gives you a detailed view of what’s taking up space and offers tools to help you free up space efficiently.

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.

8. 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.

9. Review and Delete Bookmarks

If you’re like me, you must have a large number of bookmarks in your web browser. However, everything you bookmark doesn’t stay useful or relevant forever. Unnecessary bookmarks take up valuable space and make it difficult to find the bookmarks you actually need. So, its best to review and remove the bookmarks you don’t need anymore.

Here’s how to review and delete browser bookmarks on your Mac:

1. Open your web browser and go to bookmarks. In Safari, click Bookmarks in the sidebar or press Command ⌘ + Option ⌥ + B on your keyboard.

2. Review the list of bookmarks and identify the ones you no longer need or find relevant.
3. To delete a bookmark, right-click it and select Delete, or click it and press the Delete key on your keyboard.

4. You can also organize your bookmarks into folders to make them easier to navigate. To do this, right-click a bookmark and select New Folder.

10. Clean Junk Files

Cleaning junk files is an important part of decluttering your Mac. Over time, your Mac can accumulate a lot of cache, log, and temporary files. They take up valuable storage space and slow down your Mac’s performance, causing system crashes and errors.

You can clean cache files manually but I find it time-consuming and risky. So, I use MacKeeper to get rid of junk files. Here’s how to clean junk files on your Mac using MacKeeper:

1. Download and install MacKeeper on your Mac.
2. Open MacKeeper and click Safe Cleanup in the left sidebar.

3. Click Start Scan.

4. Wait for the scan to complete, and select the junk files you want to delete. You can also click Check All to select all.

5. Click Clean Junk Files.

6. A Cleaning Completed notification will appear with the size of junk files removed. Click Rescan to run the scan again.

11. Remove Login Items

Login items are apps that open automatically when you log in to your Mac. While some login items may be necessary, you don’t want all apps to start up when you boot your Mac. They can slow down your Mac’s startup time and reduce performance. So, it’s best to remove unnecessary 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.

Alternatively, you can use MacKeeper to change startup programs on Mac. Here’s how it works:

1. Download MacKeeper and install it on your Mac.
2. Open Login Items under Performance in MacKeeper.

3. Click Start Scan.

4. Select unnecessary items from the list and click Remove Selected Items.

5. Tap the Remove button on the pop-up.

6. It will remove your selected items from the system startup list. You can click Rescan to repeat the process.

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