Mac storage questions, answered.

Storage Studio is a macOS menu-bar app for managing storage — a storage-management platform for the Mac rather than a cleaner. It unifies your internal drive, external drives, cloud accounts, and other devices into one intelligent space that's bigger than any single disk: it tiers big apps and folders to a fast external drive (leaving a shortcut so they still open normally), lets you browse both drives as one, and moves files across cloud providers. It includes Tuhi, a private on-device assistant powered by Apple Intelligence, and a multi-device ecosystem — Bridge sends files and clipboard directly between your own devices, and Collab Sync mirrors a shared folder between two Macs. Reclaiming space by moving instead of deleting is one capability among many, and everything is reversible. It runs on Macs with Apple silicon (M1 or later) on macOS 13 and later.

If you want space back without losing files, the best approach is "move, don't delete." Storage Studio relocates big apps and folders to an external drive (with a shortcut left in place so they still open), reclaims space macOS is holding in old snapshots, and keeps cloud files online-only — all previewed first and reversible. But it's more than a space cleaner: it's a storage-management platform that unifies your Mac, external drives, cloud, and other devices into one space, with an on-device assistant (Tuhi) and device-to-device sharing built in. Cleaners delete; Storage Studio moves, unifies, and connects. You can try it free before you buy.

If your goal is more free space without losing files, yes — Storage Studio does everything you'd reach a cleaner for, and reclaims space by moving instead of deleting. But it isn't really a cleaner; it's a storage-management platform. A cleaner deletes to make room. Storage Studio moves large apps and folders to a fast external drive (leaving a shortcut so they keep working), unifies your Mac, drives, and cloud into one space, and connects across your devices with Bridge (device-to-device transfer and clipboard) and Collab Sync (shared folders between two Macs) — all preview-first and reversible. It also includes Tuhi, a private on-device assistant powered by Apple Intelligence.

Yes. Storage Studio asks before it deletes or overwrites anything, previews every move before a byte is touched, and leaves a shortcut when it relocates a file so nothing disappears from your folders. Everything is reversible, and the app is notarised by Apple.

Storage Studio runs on Macs with Apple silicon (M1 or later) and supports macOS 13 Ventura through the latest releases (Sonoma, Sequoia, Tahoe). Intel Macs aren't supported, and there is no version to download for them. An Intel Mac that already has Storage Studio is never offered an update it can't run, and everything on it and on your drives stays where it is.

Empty the Trash, clear app caches, remove old downloads, and move large apps and folders you rarely use to an external drive. Storage Studio does all of this in one tap with Tuhi — it clears caches and rarely-used files, reclaims old local backups, and keeps cloud files online-only, previewed first and fully reversible — so you get gigabytes back without hunting through Finder.

Pair your Mac with an external SSD and offload what you don't need on the startup disk. Storage Studio moves large apps, folders, and media to the external drive and leaves a shortcut in the original spot, so you reclaim space while keeping every file — nothing is deleted.

Yes — app caches rebuild automatically, so clearing them safely reclaims space; the only risk is deleting the wrong thing by hand. Storage Studio clears only known-safe caches and rarely-used files, shows a preview first, and never touches your personal files without asking.

Keep at least 10–15% of your drive free so macOS has room for virtual memory, updates, and temporary files — performance drops when it's nearly full. Storage Studio watches your free space and helps you keep it in a healthy range automatically.

That warning means your boot drive is nearly out of room. Clear caches, delete large unused files, and relocate big apps and folders to an external drive. Storage Studio fixes it fast: it moves the biggest items to a fast external drive and leaves a shortcut behind, so your startup disk has room again while everything still opens normally.

"System Data" is the catch-all bucket — caches, logs, local snapshots, and app support files — and it can grow to tens of gigabytes. You can't delete it directly, but you can shrink it. Storage Studio's What's Using Space pinpoints the biggest contributors and clears or relocates them safely, so System Data comes back down.

macOS often keeps the freed blocks in APFS local snapshots (local Time Machine copies) until they age out, so deleting files doesn't show as free space right away. Storage Studio surfaces those snapshots and reclaims the space with one click — and after a big move it auto-thins them so the space appears immediately.

Dragging an app to another drive can break it, because macOS expects it in /Applications. Storage Studio relocates the app to your external drive and leaves a shortcut in place, so it still launches normally from Launchpad, Spotlight, and the Dock — and you can move it back in one click.

Plug in a USB-C or Thunderbolt SSD and let Storage Studio pair it with your internal drive as one workspace. It moves big folders, libraries, and apps to the SSD with a shortcut left behind, so your MacBook behaves like it has a much bigger disk — fast enough to work directly off the external drive.

Yes — large Photos, Final Cut, and iMovie libraries are common space hogs. Storage Studio relocates them to an external drive while keeping them usable, leaving a shortcut so your apps still find them. Moving a folder to your fast drive keeps its files' modified and created dates, permissions, Finder tags and other extended attributes.

Not the way Storage Studio does it. It leaves a shortcut (symlink) at the original location, so apps, Finder, and Spotlight resolve everything as if it never moved — and the move is fully reversible.

Yes. Finder has no setting for where it keeps iPhone and iPad backups, but Storage Studio can move them to your external drive from What's Using Space: it copies them, checks every file arrived, and only then frees the space on your Mac. Finder keeps backing up to the drive afterwards, so keep it connected when you back up a device — and Move back returns the backups to your Mac any time.

You choose, and nothing is lost unless you say so. Keep both renames the copy already on the drive with today's date and moves yours in beside it; Merge joins the two, renaming any same-named file with different contents instead of overwriting it; Replace removes the drive's copy first and asks you to type Replace to confirm.

Online-only files live in the cloud and download on demand, freeing local space. Storage Studio can keep iCloud Drive, Dropbox, Google Drive, and OneDrive files online-only as part of Tuhi, so downloaded copies stop piling up on your Mac.

Yes. Storage Studio's Data Transfers connect Google Drive, Dropbox, OneDrive, Box, iCloud Drive, and any S3-compatible service (AWS, Cloudflare R2, Backblaze B2, Wasabi, DigitalOcean Spaces, MinIO), plus FTP and SFTP — and it can move, copy, or sync between any of them in either direction. Google Photos isn't available right now, because Google no longer lets apps read your photo library. A finished transfer can be run again with one click, and only what changed since last time is sent.

Yes. Storage Studio adds a "Storage Studio" location to Finder's sidebar, with each connected cloud account and paired device as a folder inside, and a Finder button in the app's main window opens it. Files stay in the cloud until you open them. Folders you have visited open straight away and then update with only what changed; very large folders keep loading in the background, even if you move on. Photos, videos and documents show real thumbnails on accounts that don't charge per request.

No. Only files you actually open are downloaded, and you choose how long they stay on your Mac once you stop using them — from not at all up to a week, 24 hours by default (and longer when the drive keeps its copies on your external drive). After that they go back to being online-only and the space is freed; files that are open or still uploading are never removed. The setting is "Keep opened files on this Mac", in Remotes & Accounts → Mounting.

Yes. Your Mac's own iCloud Drive is already there, and Storage Studio can add up to three more Apple IDs — a work account or a family member's. You sign in with the Apple ID, its password and the six-digit code Apple sends to that account's devices. That Apple ID needs Advanced Data Protection turned off and "Access iCloud Data on the Web" turned on, and Apple asks for a fresh code about once a month.

Yes. For each extra Apple ID you connect, its iCloud Photos library appears in Finder next to its iCloud Drive, and can be chosen as the source of a transfer — for example, to copy every photo to an external drive or another cloud. It is read-only, and the Hidden and Recently Deleted albums are never shown.

Since March 2025, Google only lets apps like Storage Studio see the photos they uploaded themselves — not the rest of your library. Connecting Google Photos would show an empty library, so it isn't available right now, and we're working on another way to bring your photos in. In the meantime, Google Takeout (takeout.google.com) can export your whole library and deliver it to Google Drive, Dropbox, OneDrive or Box — connect that account, and Data Transfers can copy the export to your Mac or your external drive. A Google Photos account connected earlier still works as a place to send photos to.

Yes — that's My Drive, and it comes with every Storage Studio trial and licence, with nothing else to buy. Open the Delta Drive tab, choose Use storage you own, confirm your email with the one-time code we email you, and connect an Amazon S3, Wasabi, DigitalOcean Spaces or other S3-compatible bucket. Your files stay in your own storage, appear in Finder like a disk, and open in any browser at storagestudio.us/drive. Storage Studio only works inside one folder of the bucket you name, and switching between drives copies nothing and loses nothing.

Yes. From My Drive you can share a file or folder with named people, set an expiry, and choose whether they can read, comment or edit — you can withdraw it any time and see who opened it. Each share belongs to the drive it was made on, so if that drive is switched off the people you shared with are told it isn't available right now, never shown anything else.

My Drive is paused, not removed, and nothing in your storage is touched — your files stay in your own bucket. While paused it can't be opened on the web and anything you shared is paused; on your Mac you can only disconnect or remove it. Reactivating Storage Studio picks up where you left off. If it stays paused for six months, the storage keys you gave us are forgotten (you're emailed two weeks before); your files never are.

Yes. When you share, choose "Anyone with the link" and anyone who has the link can view what you shared in their browser — and download it only if you turn on Allow downloads. Every public link stops working after 1, 7, 30 or 90 days, so nothing stays open for ever. You can add a password, limits on views, downloads and data, and an email the first time it's opened. A link pauses when a limit is reached, and unusual traffic suspends it automatically. Visitors can't comment, upload, change or reshare anything. Prefer to choose exactly who sees it? Invite people by email instead — each signs in with a one-time code, no account or password.

Open Shared in the Delta Drive window (Shares on the website). It has three tabs. Shared by me and Shared with me are file lists like My Drive, showing the shares that are active now — right-click any item to manage it, copy the link, extend it, email the invitation again, see who opened it, or Withdraw it, which stops it at once. Sharing stats has the totals, charts of opens and downloads over time, and one list of every share: active ones by default, or History (ended, withdrawn or removed) and All, with filters, bulk actions and Export CSV. You can also rename a share, add or remove people, and reactivate one that has expired. There's no "never": every share ends by itself. Choosing Share… on a single file or folder shows only that item's shares.

Yes. Your active drive — Delta Drive, or My Drive on storage you own — is the one your Macs, Finder and the website use. Making another drive active asks first, and if any step fails the whole switch is undone. Nothing is copied or deleted: each drive keeps everything it has, and you can switch back at any time. You can also just look at another drive in your browser without changing anything. Because the Finder folder is named after the active drive, a Finder favourite to the old name stops working after a switch. Switching a drive off deletes nothing either, and Reconnect brings it back with nothing to set up again.

Yes — that's a synced folder. Choose Add ▸ Sync a folder… in Delta Drive, pick the folder on your Mac and choose Both ways, Mac → Drive or Drive → Mac. New files, edits and deletions then follow on the other side automatically. Nothing a sync removes is erased: it goes to your Mac's Trash or the drive's Trash, where Put back returns it. A sync stops and asks before a big delete, waits until you've stopped changing files, and holds off while your Mac is busy, hot, low on battery or on a metered connection. Stop syncing deletes nothing.

Open Trash in Delta Drive, right-click the item and choose Put back. It returns to the folder it came from and never overwrites anything — if something with the same name is there, it comes back as "name (2)", and a folder that has gone is made again. Put back to… lets you choose another folder. The Trash shows where each item came from, and when and by whom it was deleted. Nothing is removed from the Trash automatically, so items count towards your storage until you delete them for good.

Yes. Right-click any file or folder for Colour — Red, Orange, Yellow, Green, Blue, Purple or Grey, which everyone who can see the item sees — or Mark: Favourite, Star, Heart, Like or Dislike, Follow up with a due date, or Remind me at a date and time. Marks are personal; only you see them. Marked & due in the sidebar gathers everything you've coloured or marked, and when something is due your Mac shows one notification. You can also right-click a folder and choose Create index to get a page listing everything in it.

Yes — folder locking is on for every Delta Drive account. Right-click a folder in the Delta Drive window on your Mac and choose Lock…, choose a 6-digit PIN, enter it again, add a hint if you like (it's emailed to you, never shown in the app) and confirm with a code we email you. Locking carries on in the background, and the names of the files inside are protected too. To open it, double-click it and enter your PIN and an emailed code; you can then open a file, save a copy, add files, Lock now or Remove lock…. Files you open are private copies that are deleted when it locks again, and changes to them aren't saved back. It locks again after 5, 15 (the default), 30 or 60 idle minutes, and whenever your Mac sleeps, the screen locks or Storage Studio quits. A locked folder opens only in Storage Studio on your Mac — never in a browser or in Finder. Synced or linked folders, and folders inside a locked folder, can't be locked.

No — but your recovery kit can get you back in. Choose Forgot PIN…, type the 24 words of your recovery kit and paste a code we email you, and your PIN is shown once. A folder locked without a recovery kit can't have its PIN recovered. If you forget the PIN and lose your recovery kit, the folder can never be opened again — Storage Studio can't recover it for you. Only someone with both your PIN and your email can open a locked folder: someone holding your files, your Mac or your email alone can't. Storage Studio never opens a locked folder, and our support team can't unlock one for you or for anyone else, so keep your recovery kit somewhere safe and away from your Mac.

No. Finder's own Locked checkbox (in Get Info) only stops a file being changed or deleted by accident, and anyone using your Mac can untick it — it doesn't keep anyone out. A locked Delta Drive folder does: it opens only in Storage Studio on your Mac, with your 6-digit PIN and a one-time code we email you, and it can't be opened in a browser or in Finder at all.

Everything keeps working until the end of the period you've paid for. Then your Delta storage becomes read-only: you can still open and download everything, but you can't add to it. The stored data is deleted 30 days after the plan ends, as our Privacy Policy says — we email you 7 days and 1 day before, and once more when it's done. Buy a plan again before then and everything is restored as it was.

Yes. Files in Delta Drive open right in the browser — pictures, PDFs, video and audio, text and code, Markdown, spreadsheets, Word, Excel, PowerPoint and more. People you invite with Comment access or higher can leave comments that point at an exact line, page, area, video moment or spreadsheet cell, reply, resolve threads, turn comments into tasks with a due date, and @mention others who can already open the file. Each file can be marked Not reviewed, In review, Approved or Changes requested. Your private notes are never shown to anyone you share with.

It's 24 words you print or save when you create your Delta Trust vault, and it's what opens your backups on a new or repaired Mac. Your recovery kit is the only way back in. If you lose it, your backups can never be recovered — not even by Storage Studio. Keep it somewhere safe and away from the Mac it protects. If your copy is lost but you still have that Mac, you can show the same words again there after confirming a code we email you.

It means the answer came from the shop, IT company or reseller you got Storage Studio through. Partners can give Tuhi their own questions and answers, which we review before they reach any Mac, and the reply may offer a button to open their website or message them. Tuhi's own answers always come first for anything about Storage Studio itself, and Tuhi doesn't guess on a partner's behalf. The matching happens on your Mac — your questions are never sent to your partner or to us.

The one-time codes we email to sign you in or confirm your address — on the website, for a share, when you redeem a code, set up My Drive or lock a folder — are 12 characters: upper- and lower-case letters, numbers and symbols. Capitals matter, so copy and paste the code rather than typing it; the boxes have a Paste button, stray spaces don't matter, and look-alike characters such as l, I, 1, O and 0 are never used. Your licence activation code is longer, at 16 characters. The six-digit code for adding another Apple ID comes from Apple, not from us.

Purgeable space is storage macOS is holding — old snapshots, cached cloud files, optimised media — that it frees automatically when you need room, which is why "free" space can look smaller than expected. Storage Studio reclaims a lot of it on demand instead of making you wait.

macOS keeps point-in-time APFS local snapshots so Time Machine can restore even when your backup drive is away — useful, but they can hold a lot of space. Storage Studio lists every snapshot, shows which are already safely backed up, and reclaims the space you choose in one click.

Not unless you ask it to. Freeing space, moving apps and folders, and reclaiming snapshots all happen on your Mac and your external drive. Your files only leave your Mac when you choose to — syncing to a cloud account you connected, backing up to the cloud, or using My Drive on storage you own — and then they go to the storage you picked. Otherwise only licence validation and optional telemetry touch the network.

Yes — Storage Studio includes Tuhi, an assistant powered by Apple Intelligence that answers your storage questions, can tell you why your Mac feels slow, hot, or low on memory, and can do things for you — download a link to the drive you name, or stop, pause, carry on or cancel a transfer, move or backup when you ask. It runs entirely on your Mac with Apple's on-device model, never exposes file paths or anything private, and says "I don't know" rather than guess.

Nothing — your files stay exactly where they are on both drives. Storage Studio simply stops moving new things; it never holds files hostage or makes you re-import anything to keep using them.

So new versions, fixes and messages for you arrive within minutes instead of the next day. While the app is open it checks in every few minutes. It always sends an anonymous id for your Mac, the app version and your choice for Send usage and crash reports; with that switch on, it also sends your macOS version, whether you're on a trial or a plan, and how much space Storage Studio has saved and moved. It never sends your files, file names, your name or your Mac's name, and each check-in is protected so nobody else can pretend to be your Mac. Details are in our Privacy Policy.

There's a 15-day free trial with no payment method required — full features, no card. The trial is tied to your Mac, so reinstalling doesn't reset it. After the trial you can pick a plan; see storagestudio.us/pricing for current prices.

Your choice: a one-time Lifetime licence that includes all future updates, or a Monthly or Annual subscription through our secure checkout that you can cancel anytime (access continues to the end of the paid period). See storagestudio.us/pricing for current prices.

Storage Studio keeps working while you sort it out, and everything you've moved stays where it is. You'll be offered Fix Payment, which opens a secure page listing what's owed; you can pay with the same card or a different one. You don't need your licence key for a payment problem. If your bank declines subscription payments, allowing international or recurring payments on the card usually fixes it.

Yes — cancel anytime from your billing page (Billing & invoices in Settings → License) and you keep access until the end of your billing period. Refund terms are in the Terms of Service (§5.5–§5.6).