How to find large files on your Mac: Quick tutorial

The dreaded "Your disk is almost full" notification on Mac always seems to pop up at the worst times. You're busy, and now you have to find and delete big files to keep your Mac running smoothly.

No matter how much space you have, without regularly cleaning out large files, you'll run out eventually. Apps grow, media files pile up, and macOS stores more cache and logs.

Want to find those large files? Follow this guide and you'll never have to worry about running out of space again.

How to quickly find large files on your Mac

The first thing everyone tries to do when they are running out of space is to open their Finder and click around until some files look heavy enough to make a difference when deleted.

Let me show you a few better ways to find large files Mac drives store and get rid of them.?

My favorite method ever is CleanMyMac X. With just a few clicks, you can get rid of junk, speed up all kinds of processes, fully uninstall and update apps, and even scan for malware. CleanMyMac X safely avoids essential system files, deleting only the items you don't need.

To quickly clean your Mac, use the app's Large & Old Files option:

1. Open CleanMyMac X.
2. Navigate to Large & Old Files in the sidebar.
3. Click Scan.
4. Check any files you'd like to delete.
5. Remove.

How to find large files manually

If you want to know about some more ways to search for the biggest space wasters on Mac, here you go. You can find these files the following way:

• Using the Optimize Storage feature
• Using Spotlight in Finder
• Using Terminal commands

Note: Unlike the automatic file deletion with CleanMyMac X, when you're trying to find your biggest files and get rid of them manually, you have to be extra careful not to trash something critical to your system's operation.

Search for large files in Storage management

For the past few years, there's been a simple Mac find large files utility located within System Information. It breaks down various file types in a simple interface by size, including apps, documents, backups, mail, messages, music, and more.

To delete files with this Storage manager:

1. Click the Apple logo in the menu bar ? About This Mac ? More Info.
2. Go to Storage ? Storage Settings.
3. Optimize Storage ? Optimize. Then, follow the instructions.?

If you want to browse through a more visual representation of your files and folders, you can use CleanMyMac X's Space Lens tool, which lets you clearly compare files and folders of different sizes.

To use Space Lens:

1. Open CleanMyMac X.
2. Navigate to Space Lens in the sidebar.?
3. Click Scan.
4. Navigate through files either as text on the left or visually on the right.
5. Check any folder or file and click Remove.

Alternatively, you can use Disk Drill's Clean Up feature.

Disk Drill is a powerful utility for recovering deleted files from any volumes, creating backups, shredding sensitive documents, and scanning your Mac's hard drive. Disk Drill features a convenient Clean Up tool, which makes it easy to see the largest files occupying your space.

To use Disk Drill's Clean Up:

1. Open Disk Drill.
2. Navigate to Clean Up in the sidebar.
3. Click Start Scan.
4. Check any file and click Remove.

Browse for large files with Finder

Another way to discover any file or folder on your Mac and rank them by size is by using Finder's Spotlight search.

To explore old large files with Finder:

1. Open Finder.
2. Activate search with ? + F.
3. Select This Mac.
4. In the dropdown menus, pick File Size, "is greater than," and 100 MB (or any other value).
5. Go through the files and Move to Trash anything you don't need.

Tip: To see hidden files, use the Shift + ? + . (period) shortcut.

Use find commands via Terminal

If you want maximum flexibility and access when it comes to managing your files, you can do so through Terminal and its command-line interface.

Note: This option is only recommended for advanced users due to the high probability of something going wrong in case of not following exact directives.

To remove files with Terminal:

1. Launch Terminal from the Utilities folder in Applications.
2. Type sudo find / -type f -size +100000k -exec ls -lh {} \; | awk '{ print $9 ": " $5 }' to display the path to all files greater than 100 MB.
3. Press Enter.
4. To remove files, type rm and copy-paste any path from above.

As you can see, there are more than a few ways to find large files macOS hides and delete them. While you can do so manually, it's really faster, safer, and easier to rely on apps such as CleanMyMac X and Disk Drill. Best of all, both tools are available to you at no cost for seven days through the trial of Setapp, a platform with more than 240 outstanding Mac, iOS, and web apps for every task you can imagine.?