Erasing your disk: For most reasons to erase, including when reformatting a disk or selling, giving away, or trading in your Mac, you should erase your entire disk.
- To fix this, just remove the pen drive and clean the USB slot on your Mac. After a while, insert it once again, and check if it has been detected or not. Reinsert the USB drive. If you have not properly inserted the USB drive to Mac, then you might encounter this issue. To fix this, just remove the pen drive and clean the USB slot on your Mac.
- Today, we're showing you how to clean your Apple Computer to make it run faster and free up disk space. If your Mac is running slow, this video is for YOU!
- The newer APFS is best for solid-state drives, and Mac OS Extended (Journaled) is best for older, mechanical hard drives. Scheme: Choose GUID Partition Map. Next, click Erase and after Disk Utility.
You can move seldom-used files and folders to external storage (such as a USB flash drive, an external hard drive, or a DVD). You can uninstall applications purchased from the App Store using Launchpad. From the Launchpad display, click and hold down the icon until it wiggles. USBclean is a simply macOS tool designed to fix the problem. Once you drag and drop an external drive on top of the USBclean main window, the utility will quickly delete the.DSStore.
Erasing a volume on your disk: In other cases, such as when your disk contains multiple volumes (or partitions) and you don't want to erase them all, you can erase specific volumes on the disk.
Erasing a disk or volume permanently deletes all of its files. Before continuing, make sure that you have a backup of any files that you want to keep.
How to erase your disk
Clean My Drive For Mac
- Start up from macOS Recovery. Then select Disk Utility from the Utilities window and click Continue.
If you're not erasing the disk your Mac started up from, you don't need to start up from macOS Recovery: just open Disk Utility from the Utilities folder of your Applications folder. - Choose View > Show All Devices from the menu bar in Disk Utility. The sidebar now shows your disks (devices) and any containers and volumes within them. The disk your Mac started up from is at the top of the list. In this example, Apple SSD is the startup disk:
- Select the disk that you want to erase. Don't see your disk?
- Click Erase, then complete these items:
- Name: Type the name that you want the disk to have after you erase it.
- Format: Choose APFS or Mac OS Extended (Journaled). Disk Utility shows a compatible format by default.
- Scheme: Choose GUID Partition Map.
- Click Erase to begin erasing your disk and every container and volume within it. You might be asked to enter your Apple ID. Forgot your Apple ID?
- When done, quit Disk Utility.
- If you want your Mac to be able to start up from the disk you erased, reinstall macOS on the disk.
How to erase a volume on your disk
- Start up from macOS Recovery. Then select Disk Utility from the Utilities window and click Continue.
If you're not erasing the volume your Mac started up from, you don't need to start up from macOS Recovery: just open Disk Utility from the Utilities folder of your Applications folder. - In the sidebar of Disk Utility, select the volume that you want to erase. The volume your Mac started up from is named Macintosh HD, unless you changed its name. Don't see your volume?
- Click Erase, then complete these items:
- Name: Type the name that you want the volume to have after you erase it.
- Format: Choose APFS or Mac OS Extended (Journaled). Disk Utility shows a compatible format by default.
- If you see an Erase Volume Group button, the volume you selected is part of a volume group. In that case, you should erase the volume group. Otherwise, click Erase to erase just the selected volume. You might be asked to enter your Apple ID. Forgot your Apple ID?
- When done, quit Disk Utility.
- If you want your Mac to be able to start up from the volume you erased, reinstall macOS on that volume.
Reasons to erase
You can erase at any time, including in circumstances such as these:
- You want to permanently erase all content from your Mac and restore it to factory settings. This is one of the final steps before selling, giving away, or trading in your Mac.
- You're changing the format of a disk, such as from a PC format (FAT, ExFAT, or NTFS) to a Mac format (APFS or Mac OS Extended).
- You received a message that your disk isn't readable by this computer.
- You're trying to resolve a disk issue that Disk Utility can't repair.
- The macOS installer doesn't see your disk or can't install on it. For example, the installer might say that your disk isn't formatted correctly, isn't using a GUID partition scheme, contains a newer version of the operating system, or can't be used to start up your computer.
- The macOS installer says that you may not install to this volume because it is part of an Apple RAID.
About APFS and Mac OS Extended
Disk Utility in macOS High Sierra or later can erase using either the newer APFS (Apple File System) format or the older Mac OS Extended format, and it automatically chooses a compatible format for you.
How to choose between APFS and Mac OS Extended
Disk Utility tries to detect the type of storage and show the appropriate format in the Format menu. If it can't, it chooses Mac OS Extended, which works with all versions of macOS. If you want to change the format, answer these questions:
- Are you formatting the disk that came built into your Mac?
If the built-in disk came APFS-formatted, Disk Utility suggests APFS. Don't change it to Mac OS Extended. - Are you about to install macOS High Sierra or later for the first time on the disk?
If you need to erase your disk before installing High Sierra or later for the first time on that disk, choose Mac OS Extended (Journaled). During installation, the macOS installer decides whether to automatically convert to APFS—without erasing your files. - Are you preparing a Time Machine backup disk or bootable installer?
Choose Mac OS Extended (Journaled) for any disk that you plan to use as a Time Machine backup disk or as a bootable installer. - Will you be using the disk with another Mac?
If the other Mac isn't using macOS High Sierra or later, choose Mac OS Extended (Journaled). Earlier versions of macOS don't work with APFS-formatted volumes.
How to identify the format currently in use
If you want to know which format is currently in use, use any of these methods:
![Drive Drive](/uploads/1/0/5/7/105771647/840678349.jpg)
- Select the volume in the Disk Utility sidebar, then check the information shown on the right. For more detail, choose File > Get Info from the Disk Utility menu bar.
- Open System Information and select Storage in the sidebar. The File System column on the right shows the format of each volume.
- Select the volume in the Finder, then choose File > Get Info from the menu bar. The Get Info window shows the Format of that volume.
If your disk or volume doesn't appear, or the erase fails
- Shut down your Mac, then unplug all nonessential devices from your Mac.
- If you're erasing an external drive, make sure that it's connected directly to your Mac using a cable that you know is good. Then turn the drive off and back on.
- If your disk or volume still doesn't appear in Disk Utility, or Disk Utility reports that the erase process failed, your disk or Mac might need service. If you need help, please contact Apple Support.
Learn more
- If you can't start up from macOS Recovery, you can use a different startup disk instead.
- If Disk Utility shows a Security Options button in the Erase window, you can click that button to choose between a faster (but less secure) erase and a slower (but more secure) erase. Some older versions of Disk Utility offer the option to zero all data instead. These secure-erase options aren't offered or needed for solid-state drives (SSDs) and flash storage.
If you’re willing to dig into your iMac’s data a little, there’s no reason to buy additional software to help you clean up your hard drive. All you really need is the willpower to announce, “I simply don’t need this particular item any longer.” (Sometimes, that’s tougher than it may seem.)
Unnecessary files and unneeded folders
Avi codec for quicktime mac os. Consider all the stuff that you probably don’t really need:
- Game demos and shareware that you no longer play (or even remember)
- Movie trailers and other QuickTime video files that have long since passed into obscurity
- Temporary files that you created and promptly forgot
- Log files that chronicle application installations and errors
- GarageBand loops and iMovie video clips you’ll never use
- StuffIt and Zip archives that you downloaded and no longer covet
- iTunes music, video, and movies that no longer appeal
How hard is it to clean this stuff off your drive? Easier than you might think!
- You can quickly delete files.
- You can remove items from your iTunes Library (especially movies, which take up several gigabytes of space each). If you’ve purchased an item from the iTunes Store, don’t forget that you can download that item again in the future for free — perhaps when you’ve added an external drive to hold some of your stuff.
- You can move seldom-used files and folders to external storage (such as a USB flash drive, an external hard drive, or a DVD).
- You can uninstall applications purchased from the App Store using Launchpad. From the Launchpad display, click and hold down the icon until it wiggles. If an X button appears on the icon, you can click the X to remove the application from your iMac. Again, these applications can be reinstalled at any time.
- You can get rid of most of the space taken by any application (often the whole application) by deleting its application folder that was created during the installation process.
Free Mac Cleanup Software
![Clean hard drive mac Clean hard drive mac](/uploads/1/0/5/7/105771647/506887351.png)
Always check the application’s README file and documentation for any special instructions before you manually delete any application’s folder! If you created any documents in that folder that you want to keep, don’t forget to move them before you trash the folder and its contents. In fact, some applications may come with their own uninstall utility, so checking the README file and documentation may save you unnecessary steps. If function excel 2011 mac.
Removing an application or file from your hard drive usually takes two simple steps:
- Display the file or application folder in a Finder window.
- Delete the file or folder with one of these steps:
- Drag the icon to the Trash.
- Select the icon and press ⌘+Delete.
- Right-click the icon and choose Move to Trash from the contextual menu.
- Select the icon and click the Delete button on the Finder toolbar (if you added one).
Truly, no big whoop.
Unlike programs in the Windows world, most OS X applications don’t need a separate, silly uninstall program (although some larger Mac applications include one for convenience).
Don’t forget to actually empty the Trash, or you’ll wonder why you aren’t regaining any hard drive space. (El Capitan works hard to store the contents of the Trash until you manually delete it, just in case you want to undelete something.) To get rid of that stuff permanently and reclaim the space, do the following:
- Click the Trash icon on the Dock and hold down the button — or right-click — until the pop-up menu appears.
- Choose Empty Trash.
Associated files in other folders
Some applications install files in different locations across your hard drive. (Applications in this category include the Microsoft Office suite and Adobe Creative Suite and Creative Cloud applications like Adobe Photoshop.) How can you clear out these orphan files after you delete the application folder?
Free Mac Cleanup
The process is a little more involved than deleting a single folder, but it’s still no big whoop. Here’s the procedure:
Clean Up Hard Drive For Mac
- Click the Search text box in a Finder window.
- Type the name of the application in the Search text box. If you want to remove Toast Titanium, you search for every file with the word Toast in its name; therefore, you find both the application and its main folder. This trick displays files created in other folders that include your search word in their names, such as project files, PDF files, and the font files that appear in the system Fonts folder.