Cleaning Up Your Mac’s Storage
Start the cleanup process with the easiest methods first, and move on to ones that may be more difficult to perform.
Empty the Trash – The Mac’s trash is actually a folder used to temporarily store files you have deleted. All those files you have moved to the trash haven’t been erased, they are still taking up space on your drive. The idea is that if you made a mistake and need a file you trashed, you can easily retrieve it.
The disadvantage is that it is easy to forget to manually empty the trash resulting in a large number of files taking up space. Emptying the trash will permanently remove all files within the Mac’s trash. If you would like to check what is in the trash first, move your cursor to the trash icon in the Mac’s Dock, right-click and select Open from the popup menu.
If there are any files you need, you can drag them out of the trash or right click on a file in the trash and select Put Back from the popup menu to move the file back where it came from.
Once you have the trash containing only unwanted items, right-click on the trash icon in the Dock and select Empty Trash from the popup menu.
