Free Up Space

Free Up Space runs your rules in one pass. First it moves the files your rules pick out to your external drive, leaving a shortcut in their place so everything still opens where it was. Then it clears app caches, the files apps rebuild by themselves. It's also the first step of every Smart Care run.

Starting a run

• In the Advanced view, click Free Up Space Now in the popover. While a run is going, the same button reads Free Up Space — view live progress.
• In the Home view, tap Run Tuhi: its first step, Tidy large folders & clear caches, is Free Up Space.
• If automatic tidy-ups are on, your rules also run on their own once a day. See Rules: moving folders automatically.

The progress window shows what is happening line by line. It keeps going if you close it: This run continues in the background if you close — open the popover and click the running pill to come back here. Cancel stops the run part-way.

What it does, step by step

%% caption: The steps of a Free Up Space run
flowchart TD
  A[Free Up Space starts] --> B{Is your external drive connected?}
  B -->|Yes| C[Step 1: run your rules - move old and large files to the drive]
  B -->|No| D[Step 1 is skipped]
  C --> E[Step 2: clear app caches]
  D --> E
  E --> F{Is cloud optimisation turned on for a provider?}
  F -->|Yes| G[Step 3: make that provider's downloaded files online-only]
  F -->|No| H[Result banner]
  G --> H

Step 1: your rules. The default rules move files from Downloads, Desktop and Documents once they're old enough, move very large files, and clear old crash reports, old Mail attachments, the preview thumbnail cache and items that have been in your Trash for more than 30 days. Before anything moves, Storage Studio checks:

• Nothing younger than the hard floor. By default, files changed within the last 7 days are never moved or deleted.
• Nothing you've opened recently. A file you still open is kept, even if it's old.
• Nothing in use. Files an app has open are skipped.
• Nothing in iCloud. Cloud placeholders, and Desktop and Documents when they're kept in iCloud Drive, are left alone.

Moved files are copied and checked before the original is removed. If a rule deletes something, it goes to the Trash, so you can still get it back. The two exceptions are caches, which rebuild themselves, and items that were already in the Trash: clearing those is permanent. See The Trash and the space it holds.

Step 2: app caches. Storage Studio clears only well-known cache subfolders inside each app's data, such as the web and graphics caches that apps rebuild on next launch. It finds those apps by what their folders contain, so a newly installed app is covered too. It never removes an app's settings, sign-ins or history. See Clearing app caches safely.

Step 3: cloud storage (optional). This step only runs for cloud providers you've turned on under Optimise cloud storage locally. It's off for every provider until you choose. See Optimise Cloud Storage Locally.

The result

When the run finishes, a banner sums it up: how much was freed, how many files were moved and how many caches were cleaned, or Already optimized — nothing to clean up if there was nothing to do. If your Mac could use more help, a Want more space? box can follow with a next step: Open Apps window when your Applications folder is large, Open Data Parking or Open iCloud settings when Documents is large, and Manage snapshots when local snapshots are building up.

Changing what it does

Open Settings → Rules. There you can:

• change the age on each rule under Default & Manual Rules;
• see what's included under Free Up Space includes;
• turn on Never delete personal files — only move them, which skips every Delete rule (cache cleaning still runs);
• raise the minimum ages, or change the Hard floor (lowering it below 7 days asks you to confirm first).

See also: Reviewing, stopping and checking a clear-up · Auto Rules · The Trash and the space it holds · Moving folders safely · Dry run