A hard drive choc full of excess files is going to slow your computer down – meaning you'll have a harder time using applications, running updates, and generally just using it. If your computer has been feeling a bit sluggish recently, it might be time to clean your hard drive.

But don't worry! Cleaning your hard drive isn't as daunting as it sounds. In fact, if you regularly clean your hard drive, you'll be helping to keep your computer running quickly and smoothly. In this guide, we'll run through the cleaning process, as well as a few tips and tricks!

Easy and Free tutorial on how to free up your Mac's hard drive. Simple download and you're done! Download it here:. Mar 16, 2021 Ways to free up disk space on a Mac. Before we show you how to clear disk space on your Mac, a word of caution is in order. Hard drive cleaning requires time and, in some cases, expertise. So, when in doubt, use a professional cleaning app. Now, let’s make some room for the files that truly deserve space on your Mac.

How to clean a hard drive

How To Clean My Mac Hard Drive For Free

Here we go through the steps you need to take in order to clear your hard drive on both Windows and Mac machines.

How to Clean your hard drive on Windows

If you're a Windows user, you can follow along with the steps below to clean up your hard drive. Bear in mind that the process may vary depending on which version of Windows you're using, but not by much.

1. Type 'disk cleanup' in the search box, which can be found on the taskbar.
2. Click Disk Cleanup.
3. Next, you'll need to select the drive you'd like to tidy up. This is usually your C drive, so pick it out of the list and confirm your choice by clicking OK.
4. You can now choose which file types to remove, under Files to delete.
5. Confirm your choice again, and hit OK.
6. Navigate back to the main Disk Cleanup menu and click on Clean up system files.
7. Once more, pick the files you'd like to remove.
8. Hit OK.
9. You're all set! The cleaning process will now begin.

How to clean hard drive on Mac

Mac users can also manually tidy up the hard drive, and it's just as simple to do it!

1. Open the Apple menu.
2. Click on About this Mac.
3. Then, select Storage. You'll be able to see the remaining free space on your device here.
4. Select Manage.
5. From here, you can review your Mac's space saving recommendations.
6. You can decide which files to store in iCloud, delete media content you've already watched to optimize your storage, configure your recycle bin to empty every 30 days, and sift through your clutter settings via Reduce Clutter.
7. From the Reduce Clutter menu, you'll be able to delete files directly, or open specific apps to determine which files to remove from inside it.

Why you should clean your hard drive

Cleaning might not be everyone's idea of a good time, but it's necessary – think how much more difficult it'd be to get about your day-to-day routine if your house was full of clutter and rubbish. It's the same with your hard drive!

Frequently cleaning your hard drive can drastically improve your computer's performance. But that's not all – we've listed some additional benefits below.

Keep your device running smoothly

As we mentioned, a computer with a hard drive approaching its capacity is going to be slower than a shiny new one. Free up some space to see an improvement in speed, better app performance, as well as easier downloads and installations.

Stay secure

You might not think that there's a link between tidying your hard drive and your security, but there is! Hard drives often accrue old files and documents, and these can contain sensitive personal information – the sort you wouldn't want falling into the hands of a cybercriminal. If you're not actively using these documents, it's better to get rid of them or back them up elsewhere rather than leave them lying around.

Purge temporary files

Your computer makes use of temporary files quite frequently, but contrary to their name, they can hang around until you decide to get rid of them. And you should – these files can take up a shocking amount of space in your hard drive! Your Chrome browser cache may contain these files, and redundant Windows system files can linger after system updates. Additionally, Windows uses temporary files to hold onto information whilst you're making modifications – like editing a Word document or using a printer.

You'll also see temporary files if you download a lot of things from the web. Temporary files are created automatically when you do, and again, will hang around uninvited.

Clear out the clutter

Ask yourself honestly – how many of the apps on your computer do you actually use? Probably not all of them, right? Especially the ones that come preloaded. These programs and applications can consume valuable hard drive space that you might need elsewhere, or want to free up for improved performance. Fortunately, it's possible to see which apps are taking up the most space and delete them manually.

Do you really need those files?
Didn't think so...

Windows users can navigate to the Apps & Features menu via Settings, then Apps, and view a list of what's currently installed on the device. You can filter these apps by size, and click Uninstall on any you think are superfluous.

Mac users are able to delete junk apps from Finder or Launchpad. To do so via Launchpad, you'll first need to open it from the Applications folder. From this folder, you can drag apps to the Bin – though you might be asked to confirm your choice by providing an administrator's permission.

Enjoy an organized device

You might be the sort of person who knows exactly where all their files should go. You might not leave a single Word doc, photo, or app in the Downloads folder for a moment longer than necessary! Or, you might use it as a sort of dumping ground. It's worth combing through your device to see just what's inside the various folders. Is your Downloads folder full? Could you delete anything in your Documents folder? Are there duplicate holiday snaps in with your Pictures? There's no better time than now to establish an organizational method for the things you download and create in order to prevent junk from accruing again. Oh, and don't forget to check what's in your Recycle Bin, too!

Don't worry about defragmentation

If you're cleaning your hard drive in order to free space, then defraging is not going to help. The defragmentation process reorganizes the data on your hard drive, but it won't actually remove files, and is an outdated function now that most computers use SSDs.

How to clean your Conclusion

So, now you know how to clean up your hard drive and the steps to take to do it! It's well worth putting aside a little time to tidy up your device – you'll see an improved performance, be better secured, and have a more organized computer at the end of it.

In fact, cleaning your hard drive is such a worthy endeavor that it even has its own day. You don't have to wait until the second Monday in February to get stuck in and toss out some useless files and apps, however!

For more information about cloud storage, be sure to check out our guide titled 'how secure is cloud storage'. In this guide we look at the main providers - Dropbox, OneDrive, Google Drive and iCloud to decide whether or not cloud storage is secure.

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Looking for a solution of this type that can be used to protect remove the Macintosh hard drive before reselling your old Mac machine, so have to worry about people (mostly computer geeks) has any chance of data recovery from the old computer! It gets to the right place and focus on the need to clean Mac and how doing the work in selective options, based on the particular circumstances.

Sulution 1: Thought Empty Trash to Delete Files Permanently? NO!

You are simply wrong! The fact is - when you empty the Recycle Bin, or using other similar methods (such as Command + Shift + Del) to remove unnecessary files you though that prevented the trash, then almost certainly still recoverable. Because the files are not actually deleted. What happens is that there are no more files regarding the Macintosh operating system (HFS +), is concerned and the space they occupied becomes available for reuse by other files.

But the disk space does not get reused immediately for the data presented in the deletion will remain on the hard disk for the future to come. Usually, it will take weeks, even months to make those deleted files 'written on' the new data generated. These data are highly risky, because they can be recovered if a bad guy get your Mac!

Solution 2: Wipe A Mac Clean with Data Wiper Software (Recommend)

Simple deletion will not far enough to permanently remove your private data from your Mac hard drive, it just remove the corresponding data entry for each file. The original data still resides on the Mac hard drive and can be easily recovered using any data recovery applications. So in order to wipe your sensitive data beyond recovery, the deleted data must be overwritten many times with new data algorithm. The most efficient solution to clean Mac safely without the CD is data wiping program.

If you prefer a pure gum Mac program, Safewiper Data Wiper Mac can be a good program to wipe sensitive data from both the physical and the logical drives. It offers two scan modes 'File Wipe' and 'Drive Wipe' which can be used to effectively delete a series of files and Mac wipe Mac hard drives. The tool is completely easy to use as it requires no special skills. Once a drive has been wiped, it cannot be recovered using any recovery tools.

Key Features of Wipe Mac Tool

• • Wipes selected files and entire folder on Mac
• • Completely wipes Internet browsing data, system traces, recent file histories.
• • Permanently erases Mac hard drive without restore.
• • Allows to schedule the wiping process and wiping time.
• • Wipes recent Ffile histories and free space
• • Compatible with Mac OS X 10.7, 10.6, 10.5, and 10.4

Step 1 Download and Install the Wipe Mac Application, Run It.

Download and install the program on your Mac, then launch the program from desktop shortcut.

Note: As you can see, it offers three wiping options for your needs, 'Erase File/Folers' and ' Wipe Drive' and 'Wipe Unused Space' , you seleect the one based on your actual needs.

How To Clean Mac Hard Drive For Faster Speed

Step 2 Select the File Type You Need to Wipe

In this article, we take the 'File Wipe' as an example to explain how it works. Select the 'File Wip' and next,

All of your hard drivers will be listed on the right, then, choose the drive which needs to be completely wiped off and click on 'Next' option.

You can see there are 6 data wiping options designed for your choice, each is targeted for different wiping needs.

Clean Mac Hard Drive Free Software

For example 'Wipe internet avtivily' can wipes all Internet activity traces and temporary Internet files, including URL you typed, online forms you filled, users names and password you entered, browsing history, temporary files it created.

Step 3 Start to Wipe Your Mac Data

How To Clean A Macbook Pro Hard Drive

In some wiping option, you'll be required to choose the essential shredding pattern based on the requirement, you can easily select the security levels. Click the 'Start wiping' button to start to wipe the selected the data. After the wiping process is complete, an intimating message will be displayed.

How To Clean Your Mac Hard Drive Free

As you can see, all of your sensitive data will be completely wiped without restore. So, when you plan to resell your Mac computer, you should be aware of the data security isn't highly crucial and you must keep in mind that simple deletion or emptying the 'trash' will not totally erase all your personal data away, using some free data recovery apps those deleted files can be easily recovered, others can easily reopen and rebuild your personal data. So to permanently wipe a Mac clean without recovery, you'd better try this Mac wiping software, it has built many advanced wiping algorithm that can automatically wipe your hard drive or selected sensitive data. It makes impossible to get back files by making use of any recovery tools.