How to check disk space on Mac

Asya Karapetyan
Content marketer, who specializes in Mac how-to guides
May 17, 2023
7 minutes to read

Depending on which macOS version you have, you can check your disk space using the “About this Mac” panel or view your storage space usage in the System settings. This article will show you the various ways to view Mac disk usage and find out what is taking up so much space on your Mac.

Contents:

  1. How to check hard drive space on Mac
  2. How to find what is taking up so much space on Mac
  3. How to manage storage on Mac

#1 Tip to quickly check available space and remove system junk on Mac

If you do not have time to explore what’s occupying your Mac hard drive but you need to quickly get some free up space, use the special software MacCleaner Pro.
This all-in-one solution will help you to analyze how much storage space you have and clean up all unneeded junk with just one click.
“MacCleaner

MacCleaner Pro

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Watch the video to see how easy it is to find out how much space you have.

How to check Mac storage usage

Check space on macOS Monterey (or earlier) using About this Mac panel

  1. Click on the Apple icon in the Menu bar.
  2. Select About This Mac. menu window About this Mac option selected
  3. Switch to the Storage tab.
  4. Here you will find information about the space occupied by different types of files. Also, in this window, you can check the free disk space. About this Mac panel with disk usage highlighted

Check free space on macOS Ventura using System Settings

  1. Open System Settings.
  2. Click General in the sidebar.
  3. Click Storage in the right panel.
  4. You will see the barchart of what’s taking space on your disk.
storage on macOS Ventura

Check storage space on Mac using Finder

Another easy way to see information about storage on Mac is to use Finder.

  1. Launch Finder.
  2. Go to the Finder’s Preferences.
  3. Switch to the Sidebar tab and make your Hard disks visible.
  4. Finder Preferences with Hard disks highlighted
  5. Then right-click on your Macintosh HD and select Get Info. In the General section, you will find all information about your Mac disk: volume capacity, the used space, and available storage space. hard disk info panel

Check Mac hard drive space using Disk Utility

You can also check the hard drive space on your Mac with the help of default Apple application Disk Utility.

  1. Launch Disk Utility. You can find it in the Applications folder or in the Launchpad.
  2. Select your Macintosh HD and view all the information about it. Macintosh HD section in Disk Utility

How to find what is taking up so much space on Mac

If you want to go deeper into storage on Mac, use MacCleaner Pro and find out the memory space-consumers, what files are in the Other category and finally free up storage on Mac.

  1. Launch MacCleaner Pro.
  2. In the Overview section, you will find a more detailed bar with information about your Mac hard drive. Maccleaner window with disk usage panel highlighted
  3. Then we recommend going to the Analyze disk usage section and launch a professional tool Disk Space Analyzer that helps to manage storage by finding and deleting files that take up huge space in your storage. The app provides the information in a form of a detailed diagram of your hard drive space distribution. The app displays even hidden files and folders that the standard Apple storage window never shows. Also, with this app, you can analyze any external storage, including cloud-based ones.
  4. So launch Disk Space Analyzer and select your Macintosh HD. Click to start scanning it.
  5. Within a short time (depending on the volume of your hard drive), you will get a detailed diagram visualization of what is occupying space on your Mac disk.
  6. disk space analyzer window

  7. You can go even deeper. Click on each section of the diagram to discover what is inside each folder or subfolder.
  8. Another useful option is to look at the list of Biggest Files on the right. Take a look at them and drop the unneeded biggest items to the special list for further removal.
    The app's window showing biggest files

How to manage space on Mac

Apple provides built-in recommendations to manage Mac’s storage. Here is how to use them:

  1. Go to the Menu Bar and click the Apple icon. Select About This Mac.
  2. Go to the Storage tab and click on Manage… Macintosh HD panel with Manage button highlighted
  3. Here you will find some simple tips that can help you to recover some disk space. Recommendations section in Manage space window

Apple recommends taking a look at applications and documents and removing the biggest ones or saving space on the Mac hard drive by keeping your files in iCloud. However, these tips are not the only solution. We also recommend using MacCleaner Pro, which allows you to find and clean up all the useless stuff on your computer, such as cache, logs, mail downloads, extensions, duplicates, and other unwanted files.

A few more words about checking storage with MacCleaner PRO

MacCleaner Pro is a professional tool that analyzes disk usage on your Mac and allows you to clean up your disk from unneeded items. This is an all-in-one solution, that allows you to clean up and speed up your Mac:

  • Remove junk files (cache, logs, language files, and other system files)
  • Remove unneeded user files
  • Uninstall unused applications
  • Remove service files of apps
  • Remove unneeded extensions and startup programs
  • Find and remove duplicate files, duplicate folders, and similar copies of photos
  • Optimize disk space
  • Free up inactive memory
  • Find hidden files and manage them
Overview tab in MacCleaner Pro
This article is based on our expertise in cleaning and optimizing Mac hard drive. We’ve been working 10+ years in developing special disk utilities for making a Mac work smoothly. We regularly explore the latest updates of macOS and update our apps and our articles according to system changes. If you have any questions related to this guide, contact us by email.

Podcast: How to see how much storage space you have on your Mac



FAQs

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