Daisydisk Mac Os Catalina

Jun 25, 2018  Our resident Mac Help guru, Peter Cohen, previously told us about the 'Other' storage category on Mac computers and what it catalogs: In short, you're seeing space taken up by plug-ins, documents, and caches stored by OS X. It's worth noting that these files aren't normally harmful or wasteful to your computer's system; most are intended to help your Mac.

Our resident Mac Help guru, Peter Cohen, previously told us about the 'Other' storage category on Mac computers and what it catalogs: In short, you're seeing space taken up by plug-ins, documents, and caches stored by OS X.

It's worth noting that these files aren't normally harmful or wasteful to your computer's system; most are intended to help your Mac run efficiently, and ideally, you shouldn't ever have to clear out your Other files. Unfortunately, they can quickly clog up a computer low on storage — especially if you're storing a large number of iPhone or iPad backups.

Whether you're looking to free up space on your hard drive or just want to do some spring cleaning, here are some simple steps to get your Mac free and clear.

A note on what happened to 'Other' space in macOS Sierra and higher

When Apple added its storage management feature to macOS Sierra, called Optimize Storage, it reorganized what 'other' storage is and where it's located on the Mac. Much of it has been divided out through other categories so it's easier to find and remove.

The 100GB of Other storage I used to carry on my iMac is whittled down to just 5GB. You can still clean out old and unnecessary content from your Mac with macOS Sierra and High Sierra by using Optimized Storage. It's just a little easier to find those unused files than it was before.

A lot of the features of Optimized Storage remove content from your Mac and store them in iCloud. If you're concerned with how much storage you're using up in iCloud, you can customize or disable some Optimized Storage features to keep a balance between what's on your Mac and what's in iCloud.

What's this 'Purgeable' category all about?

If you check your system storage graph in macOS, you'll probably discover a category called Purgeable. This is part of Apple's Optimized Storage service. When you move your Documents into iCloud (part of the Store in iCloud component) and your hard drive gets low on storage, only recently opened files are kept on your Mac. Older documents are stored in iCloud, while a shortcut icon is kept on your Mac (files are automatically re-downloaded to your Mac as soon as you open them). The Purgeable files are what Optimized Storage will move to iCloud and delete from your hard drive only if your hard drive starts to get full. Purgeable files also include caches and temporary files that used to fit into the Other category, which will also be deleted as your hard drive starts to fill up.

Though your Other storage might have been spread out across categories in macOS Sierra and higher, you can still follow the below steps to manually clean up your Mac and get rid of unnecessary files.

How to check your storage space on your Mac

If you are concerned with how much storage space you have remaining on your Mac computer, you can check its usage folder to see how much space each category is taking up, including Other.

1. Click on your desktop or the Finder icon from the Dock.
2. Select the Apple Menu icon in the upper left corner of the screen.

3. Click on About This Mac.

4. Select Storage.

Your Mac breaks down its storage categories as follows: Apps, Movies, Photos, Audio, Backups, and — that annoying, undescriptive category — Other.

How to remove cached files

Now that you know how much space your Other files are taking up, it's time to reduce their footprint on your Mac. You can start by removing items you don't need, including caches for your web browser, saved Apple Music streams, and photo previews.

A note on deleting cache folders: You only want to delete old and unnecessary files, as current cache files store your preferences. We strongly recommend only deleting cache files from old apps.

1. Click on your desktop or select the Finder icon from the Dock.
2. Select the Go menu in the upper left corner of the screen.

3. Click on Go to Folder.

4. Type ~/Library/caches into the text box. A list of caches from active apps will appear on your desktop.

5. Select the app folder you wish to remove the cache from.
6. Right-click (or control-click) on the app folder.

7. Select Move to Trash.

How to remove downloaded files

Chances are, your Downloads folder is stuffed with Other-type files, including installer packages, documents, and folders you have already made copies of somewhere else. If you want to make some room on your Mac, it may be time to clean out your Downloads folder.

1. Click on your desktop or select the Finder icon from the Dock.
2. Select the Go menu in the upper left corner of the screen.

3. Click on Downloads.

4. Select the file you wish to remove.
5. Right-click (or control-click) on the file.

6. Select Move to Trash.

If you want to save a file from the Downloads folder but don't want it clogging your drive, consider moving it to an external hard drive or flash drive, or uploading it to an online storage option like Dropbox.

How to delete old device backups in iTunes

If you tend to get new iOS devices fairly regularly, you may have unnecessary device backups stored on your computer via iTunes. Backups take up 4-5GB each, on average; there's no need to hold on to older device backups if you no longer have the device or have it stored in iCloud.

Daisydisk Mac Os Catalina Compatibility

Third-party software that can help

Daisydisk For Pc

While you don't need any third-party app to 'clean' your Mac, there are some very handy system access tools out there that make it easier to regularly remove unwanted files.

CleanMyMac 3

With CleanMyMac, you have easy access to a list of features that help you keep your Mac free of unnecessary junk. It scans your entire system and recommends files you should delete based on how old they are and whether they are considered unnecessary to your workflow. It's a lot like Apple's Optimized Storage, but with a few additional features. My favorite is the recommendation to delete all content related to an application. Sometimes, you'll end up with a couple of files left behind by an app when you delete it. CleanMyMac provides a one-button purge of everything associated with that app.

DaisyDisk

DaisyDisk scans your Mac and gives you a pie chart that makes it easy to see what files are using up the most space. You can identify files that are in the Other storage category and drag them to the delete box.

Onyx

Onyx is a robust Mac system access tool that, in-part, can delete caches, logs, temporary items, and other files that find their way into the Other storage category.

Cocktail

Cocktail is another useful system access tool that you can use to clear caches, purge memory, and manage hidden Apple app settings, which might be automatically sending files into the Other category abyss.

Questions?

Still having trouble with Other? Let us know in the comments.

Updated June, 2018: Updated the section on deleting iPhone and iPad backups in iTunes to direct people to the article about doing that. The rest of these steps are still correct.

macOS Catalina

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DaisyDisk is a paid disk space analyzer for macOS.^[3] It displays a sunburst diagram of files on a hard drive to help with the location or deletion of large files.^[4] It can display previews of files using Quick Look.^[5][6][7] It also allows the user to look at the file directly in Finder, in order to delete it or move it elsewhere.^[8]

History[edit]

DaisyDisk was started in late 2008 by interaction designer Taras Brizitsky and programmer Oleg Krupnov. They built the codebase from scratch to try to achieve higher speeds than similar programs. They decided to use a sunburst diagram as it is perceived better than other ways of visualizing data (such as treemaps).^[9]

Features[edit]

DaisyDisk needs to scan the disk to create a map of its files and folders. Once the initial scan is completed, DaisyDisk keeps all displayed information up to date and reflects all changes to disk in real-time. DaisyDisk can scan multiple disks in parallel.

With v4.5^[10] of DaisyDisk, support for APFS was added.^[11]

Interface[edit]

DaisyDisk displays the contents as a color-coded sunburst diagram, resembling the petals of a daisy.^[12] The interface places the root of the hard drive at the center of this daisy, and displays a hierarchical structure of that hard drive's file system that radiates from that center. This daisy is color-coded to differentiate between folders, while files themselves are always displayed as gray. In the right sidebar of the interface, DaisyDisk also provides a legend for these color codes. When hovering over a file or folder, the right sidebar of the interface updates with contextual information such as the file or folder name and their absolute path.^[13] When clicking on a folder on the daisy, a new daisy is displayed with the chosen folder as its root. The interface shows a 'breadcrumb trail' of the current folder right above the sunburst diagram.^[6]

DaisyDisk provides a Trash-like collector icon in the lower left of its interface where files and folders can dragged and dropped for deletion.^[13]

As of DaisyDisk v3, a specialized version of the app exists for Mac users with Retina Displays.^[14]

Integration[edit]

One of the ways DaisyDisk integrates with the Mac features is through its support of the Quick Look function, which is included in Mac OS X v10.5 'Leopard' and later. Hovering over any file or folder in DaisyDisk's interface and pressing space bar utilizes Quick Look and displays additional information about that file or folder in regards to its location and contents.^[12]

References[edit]

1. ^'DaisyDisk Release Notes'. Retrieved 9 March 2020.
2. ^'DaisyDisk Blog'. Software Ambience.
3. ^'DaisyDisk 4.6.2 free download for Mac'. MacUpdate. Retrieved 19 June 2018.
4. ^'DaisyDisk 4 Review'. Macworld. Retrieved 19 June 2018.
5. ^'DaisyDisk: Tom's Mac Software Pick'. Lifewire. Retrieved 11 March 2019.
6. ^ ^ab'DaisyDisk: Futuristic Data Visualization'. Mac.AppStorm. Retrieved 20 June 2018.
7. ^'How to identify the biggest space wasters on your Mac with DaisyDisk'. iDownloadBlog. Retrieved 19 June 2018.
8. ^'Make Your HD Bigger with DaisyDisk for Mac [Review]'. Cult of Mac. Retrieved 11 March 2019.
9. ^'An Evaluation of Space-Filling Information Visualizations for Depicting Hierarchical Structures'(PDF). Georgia Institute of Technology. Retrieved 2 June 2010.
10. ^'Top 5 questions about APFS and macOS High Sierra asked by Mac users'. DaisyDisk Blog. Retrieved 20 June 2018.
11. ^'How to free up disk space in macOS High Sierra'. Cult of Mac. Retrieved 20 June 2018.
12. ^ ^ab'Review: DaisyDisk: Disk Visualization and Analyzer Tool for the Mac'. aboutTechnology. Retrieved 13 November 2014.
13. ^ ^ab'Make Your HD Bigger with DaisyDisk for Mac [Review]'. Cult of Mac. Retrieved 13 November 2014.
14. ^'DaisyDisk Blog'. Software Ambience. 7 September 2013. Retrieved 5 January 2019.