Mac Storage Full But Nothing to Delete? Here's What to Do

When a Mac says the disk is full and you cannot find anything to delete, the space is almost always in places Finder does not show by default: a Trash that was never emptied, the Library folder in your home folder, old iPhone backups, developer data and local Time Machine snapshots. macOS groups most of this under System Data. The steps below go through each place, starting with the safest.

1. See how macOS divides the disk

1. Open System Settings > General > Storage and wait for the bar to finish calculating.
2. Read the list of categories under the bar. Click the i button beside a category such as Applications, Documents or iOS Files to see what is inside and delete from there.
3. Note the size of System Data. It has no list of its own, which is why it feels as if there is nothing to delete.

2. Empty the Trash and restart

Files in the Trash still take up space. Hold Control and click the Trash in the Dock, then choose Empty Trash. Photos and Mail keep their own deleted items too: in Photos, open Recently Deleted and remove what is there. Then restart the Mac. A restart clears temporary files and swap that build up over weeks of use.

3. Look inside the Library folder

1. In Finder, choose Go > Go to Folder, type ~/Library and press Return.
2. Switch to list view, then choose View > Show View Options and tick Calculate all sizes.
3. Click the Size column to sort. Give Finder a minute to fill in the numbers.
4. Open Caches. With the apps closed, the contents of the folders in here can be moved to the Trash. Apps rebuild what they need.
5. Open Application Support and look for folders left by apps you removed long ago. Delete only folders you can match to an app you no longer have.

Do not delete things in Library that you cannot identify. Settings, mail and app data live here as well.

4. Check for device backups and developer data

• iPhone and iPad backups. In Storage settings, click the i beside iOS Files to see each backup and its size. A single backup can run to tens of gigabytes. Keep the latest one for each device you still own.
• Xcode. If you build apps, ~/Library/Developer/Xcode/DerivedData holds build files that Xcode will create again when needed. See our guide to Xcode storage.
• Large files you forgot. In Finder press Cmd + F, choose This Mac, and search by File Size (add it from Other in the first menu) for files greater than 1 GB.

5. Know about local snapshots

If Time Machine is switched on, macOS keeps local snapshots on the startup disk between backups. They are counted under System Data. macOS deletes them by itself, normally after about a day or sooner when space is needed, so free space often goes up again without you doing anything. To see them, open Disk Utility and choose View > Show APFS Snapshots. Connecting your backup drive and letting a backup finish is the simplest way to let them clear.

What MacPrune does about hidden storage

We built MacPrune for this situation. With Full Disk Access granted, its Disk page draws a map in which every folder is a tile sized by the space it takes, so the hidden folders are visible at a glance. The map is for looking only: nothing is deleted from it.

The Clean page runs one scan and sorts the results into three groups. Safe to clean holds user caches, browser caches, the Trash, system logs, Xcode data and package manager caches. Review before cleaning holds large files, downloads older than 90 days, duplicate downloads and mail attachments. Handle with care holds iOS backups and Docker data. The Apps page finds leftovers of apps removed earlier. Everything you choose moves to the Trash after a confirmation, and the space is freed when the Trash is emptied.

The basic version is free, and what Pro adds is listed on the pricing page. Related guides: how to clear System Data and how to uninstall apps completely.