My Golden Cleaning Set: The Apps I Use Regularly
As a daily macOS user for over a decade, I’ve learned a few tricks over time. This includes which tools help efficiently clean up items and maintain a good amount of available storage at the same time.
If you’re looking for the best macOS cleaning software, here are the apps I have in my Golden Cleaning Set:
- CleanMyMac: System data, apps, documents, and downloads
- Clean Email: Emails and attachments
- DaisyDisk: System data, caches, and apps
- Photos: Photos, videos, and screenshots
- Finder: iCloud Drive, other users’ data, and miscellaneous local files
As we walk through cleaning up various parts of your Mac, I’ll share why I’ve chosen these apps so that you better understand their appeal.
How I Checked My Mac’s Storage Breakdown
Because Mac is my primary computer, I use it for both work and personal items. And as a remote worker, you can probably imagine the number of apps, documents, emails, images, and other items that accumulate over time.
By reviewing your Mac’s storage, you can quickly see which items consume the most space so that you can take action.
- Open the System Settings.
- Select General.
- Pick Storage.
You’ll then see the amount of used storage space at the top with a breakdown of how that space is used directly below. The color-coded graph helps you see what takes up the most space, and you can hover your cursor over each color to view the exact amount used.
For example, you can see that Applications are my biggest space hogs at 89 GB with Documents coming in second.
Hidden Space Hogs: Cleaning Up System Data
System Data contains files and other items used by the operating system or that don’t fall into the major categories. This includes system logs, temporary files, backups, developer files, and app support data.
Some of these items you need, like data and files used by your installed applications, while others you don’t, such as temporary files. It’s those trivial items that accumulate unnecessarily to take up space better suited for other things.
The problem with cleaning up system data is that many people don’t know which items can be safely removed and which need to remain.
For this task, I use CleanMyMac on macOS to clean up system data. It locates junky items that can be removed safely either one at a time or in one fell swoop. As you can see here, the app identified junk files, trash bins, and other items that can be reviewed and removed.
You can also use CleanMyMac on macOS to clean memory and space on external drives.
📌 Note that CleanMyMac is a paid application with both subscription plans and a one-time purchase option.
App Clutter: Removing Apps That Waste Space
In my line of work, I must often download a variety of apps. And in most cases, the apps are similar or perform the same task. For example, I might be asked to try out several Mac productivity apps to compare. Maybe in your case, you install two or three similar apps to see which one you like best.
The problem comes in when you let those unused apps remain on your system. They, along with their files and data, continue to consume storage space needlessly.
Here again, I use CleanMyMac on macOS to clean up disk space of unneeded apps. You can see below the numbers of unused apps, leftover data, and installation files along with the amount of space these items waste.
As a less expensive alternative, you can look at DaisyDisk, which charges an affordable one-time fee. With it, you’ll see a list of your installed apps with the amount of space they use. Then, simply drag and drop to uninstall an application.
Files I Forgot About: Cleaning Up Documents and Downloads
If you don’t do a document and download cleanup every so often, you can end up with a massive number of files you don’t need. This can include multiple versions of the same file, images and videos you download from the web, and outdated documents that you haven’t opened in years.
For reviewing your entire Mac user folder or just a particular one, again, I use CleanMyMac. The reason I find CleanMyMac helpful for this job is because it provides an intuitive interface and shows you what you need to review in an easy-to-understand format.
Below, I chose to review the files in a specific folder. CleanMyMac then shows me similar images, large old files, and downloads from Google Chrome. I can then review each group of files and remove those I no longer want.
While you can also use the built-in Finder or the DaisyDisk app, the interfaces aren’t quite as user-friendly for this particular task, requiring youto drill down multiple levels to locate a folder.
Mail Matters: How I Clean Up Email Storage
As we all know, maintaining a neat and orderly mailbox is important. But not everyone takes the time to delete emails to free up Mac storage space. Why? Because it’s a time-consuming task, right?
The Apple Mail app is certainly convenient as it comes preinstalled on macOS. However, when it comes to cleaning and organization, Clean Email on Mac is my app of choice and here’s why.
For unsubscribing from emails, the Unsubscriber tool helps me eliminate unwanted and unsolicited messages in bulk. You can select specific emails or all subscriptions and then unsubscribe in a click.
For finding large or old emails, Clean Email provides filters for your inbox and folders. I use these filters to locate large messages with attachments that I’ve already saved, along with outdated emails I no longer need. You can then quickly mass delete or trash the messages.
For ongoing inbox management, I use the Auto Clean feature. With it, I set up rules to handle emails automatically.
For instance, I send my newsletters to the Read Later folder as they arrive and automatically delete social notifications after one week. Rules like these can keep your inbox cleaner and easier to maintain.
💡 Tip: To recover deleted emails from iCloud, check out our complete guide.
📌 Clean Email is a paid application with a free trial, so you can check it out risk-free. Plus, it has apps for both Mac and iOS along with web access and seamless syncing across your devices. Clean Email is safe to use, is trusted by millions, and helps clean over 5 billion emails each year.
Gigabytes in Memories: Managing Photos and Videos
For the biggest space hogs, reviewing and removing unneeded photos and videos is a must. For these types of media stored in my local folders, I use the tool described above to manage them. But for items in the Photos app, I prefer the built-in features of Apple Photos.
📌 My normal starting places are with duplicate photos and bursts because I often capture more than one shot of the same thing to make sure I have the best one.
- When you review Duplicates in Photos, you can merge the data from the duplicate photos into one and then automatically delete the others.
- And when you review Bursts, you can select which pictures to keep, and the rest are instantly removed.
I also take advantage of the Utilities and Media Types areas to remove other kinds of items like Live Photos, screenshots, selfies, and videos. I use the Filter and Info features to narrow down media that I can remove by date, type, or size.
Shared Mac, Shared Mess: Cleaning Up Other Users’ Data
If you share your Mac with other users, you can come across the same types of storage issues and apply the same kinds of solutions. You can use apps like those mentioned here; however, you may have to pay for another copy or license depending on the app and version.
Personally, I’m able to use CleanMyMac on macOS to clean up temporary files, trash, and unneeded items by selecting a particular user folder for the cleanup as described earlier.
But if you have a little time, Finder can work well as a macOS cleaning utility, especially if there are minimal items in the other user’s folder.
Don’t Forget the Cloud: How I Clean iCloud Drive
Whether you sync your documents and desktop with it or simply take advantage of the space, you should review and clean your iCloud Drive regularly.
Because I don’t store many items in iCloud Drive, I simply clean it up monthly using Finder on macOS. I use the List view and then sort by Date Modified for older items, Kind for media files, and Size for the largest items, and then move things to the trash that I no longer need.
So, rather than spending money on a paid app or searching for decent free macOS cleaning software, you can access and tidy up iCloud Drive right from Finder on your Mac.
Wrap-Up
Sometimes it takes trial and error to figure out the most efficient process for managing your storage. And it may even depend on what consumes the most space.
Using CleanMyMac on macOS to clean up cache files, documents, and apps is ideal for its ease-of-use, results, and reminders to run a scan each week. And with Clean Email, I can effortlessly clear mail storage on both desktop and mobile using automations and smart features.
Now that you know the best ways to clean macOS from my point of view, it’s over to you! Which tools will you use on macOS to clean up the hard drive, mailbox, photos, and files?
