Freeing up space: the options
Storage Studio frees space on your Mac's built-in disk in five ways: clearing things that rebuild themselves, moving files to your external drive, offloading apps, making cloud files online-only and releasing space held by automatic backups.
Storage Studio has five ways to give you space back on your Mac's built-in disk: it can clear things that rebuild themselves, move your files to an external drive, offload apps you rarely use, make cloud files online-only, and release space your Mac is holding in automatic backups. Each one suits a different situation, and you can use them on their own or together.
The five ways, side by side
Mind map outline: The five ways Storage Studio frees space, and what each one works on
- Free up space
- Clear
- App caches
- Developer caches
- Logs and crash reports
- Temporary files
- Move
- Big folders to your external drive
- A shortcut stays behind
- Offload
- Apps you rarely use
- Restorable later
- Online-only
- Downloaded cloud files
- Still in your cloud account
- Release
- Space held by local snapshots
- Nothing you still have is deleted
- Clear
| Way | What it works on | Can you undo it? |
|---|---|---|
| Clear | Caches, logs and temporary files that apps rebuild by themselves | Nothing to undo: apps rebuild what they need |
| Move | Your own folders and big files | Yes: move them back at any time while the drive is connected |
| Offload | Whole apps and their data | Yes: restore the app when you want it again |
| Online-only | Cloud files that are already downloaded | Yes: they download again when you open them |
| Release | Space held by automatic backups of files that are already gone | Nothing you still have is touched |
Which one should I use?
Flowchart outline: Choosing where to start, depending on how urgent things are
- I want more free space
- leads to Is the disk full right now?
- Is the disk full right now?
- Yes: leads to Emergency Space: safest options first, aimed at a target
- No: leads to Do you want it done for you?
- Do you want it done for you?
- Yes: leads to Run Tuhi: one safe pass
- No, I want to choose: leads to What is using the space?
- What is using the space?
- Big folders: leads to Data Parking or What's Using Space
- Apps: leads to The Apps window: move or offload
- Cloud downloads: leads to Optimise Cloud Storage
- I'm not sure: leads to Where Did My Space Go
- For a quick, hands-off tidy-up, tap Run Tuhi on the Home screen. It clears caches, tidies large folders onto your drive and keeps cloud files online-only in one pass. See Smart Care.
- When the disk is full right now, open Emergency Space… from the More menu. It lists your options safest first and stops at the amount you ask for. See Emergency Space.
- To see what is big, open What's Using Space…. See Storage Inspector.
- To find out why free space dropped, open Where Did My Space Go…. See Where did my space go?.
- To move your own folders by hand, use Data Parking. For apps, see moving an app and offloading an app.
What Storage Studio won't do for you
Some things are left as your decision on purpose. Storage Studio shows you how much your Trash is holding but never empties it from a one-tap button, because emptying the Trash can't be undone (see The Trash and the space it holds). It only clears the part of an app's data that the app rebuilds by itself; settings, sign-ins and history stay where they are (see Clearing app caches safely). And it won't move anything an app is using at that moment.
If you've freed space and the number didn't go up, the space is often being held for a while by your Mac's own automatic backups. Why deleting files doesn't always give the space back explains this.
See also: Smart Care · Free Up Space · Emergency Space · Local snapshots · Optimise Cloud Storage Locally · How Storage Studio keeps every change reversible