How to Find and Delete Large & Old Files on Mac

Your Mac hard drive or SSD has a fixed storage space. So, when you use your iMac, MacBook, or Mac mini, macOS will eventually use up the storage space, and you’ll run into the “Your disk is almost full” notification. To fix this problem, you need to remove some files from your Mac or move them to an external storage drive to free up storage space.

You can look for large and old files stored on your Mac—especially theDownloadsfolder—and check if they are of any use. If they aren’t, you can Trash them and then empty Trash. But the task of opening every user folder on your MBP drive, segregating the files according to file size or creation date, and then removing the unneeded old large files is time-consuming and tiresome.

Don’t worry! We’ll help you search large and old files stored on your Mac quite quickly through the methods shared hereunder.

1. Find Large & Old Files Using Finder

The steps to find large and old files using Finder on your Mac are as follows:

a) LaunchFinderand click on the search box in the top-right corner or pressCommand+Fkeys.

b) Finder searchesThis Macby default. Click theKindfilter and selectOther．

c) Select theFile Sizecheckbox from the pop-up window and clickOK．

d) In the second field beside theFile Sizefield, selectIs greater than．

e) In the third field, enter file size. SelectKB,MB, orGBas per need in the fourth field.

f) Click theList Viewicon from the top and navigate toView>Show View Options．

g) In the pop-up window, selectSizeandDate Createdcheckboxes, then close the window.

h) Navigate toView>Arrange By>Size．Check and remove the large old files from Finder.

2. Search Large & Old Files Using Storage Management App

The steps to find large and old files using Storage Management app on your Mac are as follows:

a) Navigate toApplemenu >About This Mac．

b) In the window, click theStoragetab.

c) Check the free storage and the space used by different categories.

d) ClickManageto open the Storage Management application.

e) In the Storage Management app, chooseDocuments．

f) Search the large and old files that are inessential.

g) Click any file to check its path at the bottom and check the size and last opened date.

h) Delete the unneeded large & old files or move them to an external drive to free up space.

3. Locate Large & Old Files Using Terminal

The steps to locate large and old files using Terminal on your Mac are as follows:

a) Navigate toFinder>Applications>Utilities>Terminal．

b) In the command line, typefind /home –size +100M – size 1Gand hitReturn．You can replace/hometo any folder path and mention any file size or a size range as required.

c) To delete files, typefind /home -type f -name *.mov -size +100M –size 1G -exec rm {}and hitReturn．Here you can replace /home, extension, and size or size range with the required ones.

The above command will delete all .mov files of size in the range of 100 MB and 1 GB. The terminal command is not advisable to uninitiate as you might delete your valuable files accidentally. We recommend the following method to all for safety and ease of use.

4. Scan & Remove Large & Old Files Using SpeedUp Mac Software

The steps to locate large and old files using SpeedUp Mac software are as follows:

a) Launch *SpeedUp Macsoftware on your MacBook Air/Pro, iMac, or Mac mini that you want to optimize.

b) Click thePreferencestab from the top menu. Ensure theLarge Filescheckboxes are selected in the Boot and Non-Boot Partition, then clickOK．

c) Select a suitable volume (boot or non-boot) from the sidebar, then clickScan．让软件扫描大文件的年代elected volume/partition.

d) Once the scanning is over, clickLarge Filesfrom the sidebar, check the scan list for large files. Unselect those that you don’t want to remove, then clickCleanUpNow.

The software removes the unneeded large and old files from their directory with a click of a button. Apart from Large Files, the software also helps you remove Cache Files, Manage Extensions, Log Files, Duplicate Files, Trashes & Leftovers, Junk Files, and Language Files. Also, you can use the tool to optimize memory, uninstall apps correctly, and disable login items.

Conclusion

We hope the article helped you find large and old files on Mac. By the way, a large file is a file that is greater than some specified MB or GB. The native methods to locate large, old files are to use Finder, storage management app, or Terminal. Once you know the inessential old and large files, you can remove them from Mac. The task is tiresome and may hamper your daily productivity work on Mac. So, a better solution is to employSpeedUp Mac softwareto scan large and old files, unselect the ones you don’t need, and remove them from your Mac with a click of a button.