Optimized Storage helps you save storage space space by storing your content in iCloud and making it available on demand:
The first release of OS X in 2001 was a glimpse at the future of the Mac. The Aqua interface was a radical design change from previous versions. And OS X also introduced things like System. AnyConnect (Versions 4.7 and below) Support for Mac OS X Supported Operating Systems. Mac OS X 10.10; Mac OS X 10.11; macOS 10.12; macOS 10.13; macOS 10.14; Mac OS X Requirements. AnyConnect requires 50 MB of hard disk space. To operate correctly with Mac OS X, AnyConnect requires a minimum display resolution of 1024 by 640 pixels. Zombies™ Game of the Year Edition Terms and Conditions. INTERNET CONNECTION, EA ACCOUNT, ACCEPTANCE OF PRODUCT AND ORIGIN END USER LICENSE AGREEMENTS (EULAS), AND INSTALLATION OF THE ORIGIN CLIENT SOFTWARE (WWW.ORIGIN.COM/ABOUT) REQUIRED TO PLAY.
If you haven't yet upgraded to macOS Sierra or later, learn about other ways to free up storage space.
Choose Apple menu > About This Mac, then click Storage. Each segment of the bar is an estimate of the storage space used by a category of files. Move your pointer over each segment for more detail.
Click the Manage button to open the Storage Management window, pictured below.
The Storage Management window offers recommendations for optimizing your storage. If some recommendations are already turned on, you will see fewer recommendations.
Click the Store in iCloud button, then choose from these options:
Storing files in iCloud uses the storage space in your iCloud storage plan. If you reach or exceed your iCloud storage limit, you can either buy more iCloud storage or make more iCloud storage available. iCloud storage starts at 50GB for $0.99 (USD) a month, and you can purchase additional storage directly from your Apple device. Learn more about prices in your region.
Click the Optimize button to save space by automatically removing watched movies and TV shows. When storage space is needed, movies or TV shows that you purchased from Apple and already watched are removed from your Mac. Click the download icon next to a movie or TV show to download it again.
Your Mac will also save space by keeping only recent email attachments on this Mac when storage space is needed. You can manually download any attachments at any time by opening the email or attachment, or saving the attachment to your Mac.
Optimizing storage for movies, TV shows, and email attachments doesn't require iCloud storage space.
Empty Trash Automatically permanently deletes files that have been in the Trash for more than 30 days.
Reduce Clutter helps you identify large files and files you might no longer need. Click the Review Files button, then choose any of the file categories in the sidebar, such as Applications, Documents, Music Creation, or Trash.
You can delete the files in some categories directly from this window. Other categories show the total storage space used by the files in each app. You can then open the app and decide whether to delete files from within it.
Learn how to redownload apps, music, movies, TV shows, and books.
The button for each recommendation in the Storage Management window affects one or more settings in other apps. You can also control those settings directly within each app.
Empty Trash Automatically: From the Finder, choose Finder > Preferences, then click Advanced. Empty Trash Automatically selects “Remove items from the Trash after 30 days.”
With macOS Sierra or later, your Mac automatically takes these additional steps to save storage space:
Even without using the Optimized Storage features described in this article, you can take other steps to make more storage space available:
When you put a new hard drive in your Mac—or connect an external one using FireWire or USB—you need to decide how to partition the drive and what file system to put on it. The easiest way to do that is with the Disk Utility in Applications/Utilities. After you start it, Disk Utility shows a list of all available disks along with all the volumes (partitions) present on those disks on the left side of the window. If you want to keep things simple, just select a disk, click on the 'erase' tab and you can create a volume that uses the entire disk with a few mouse clicks.
If your needs are more complex, select the 'partition' tab. There, you can divide the disk into several partitions. The advantage of having multiple partitions is that if one fails, the others may be unaffected. The downside is that you need to think about the size of the different partitions and keep track of which files go where. And copying files from one partition to another is slow, even slower than copying from one disk to another. Keep in mind that disk access is fastest on the outside of the disk, where the first partition is located. Whether you decide to partition the disk or not, the 'options' button lets you set the type of 'partition scheme' for the disk. There are three choices:
In most cases, you'll want to use Mac OS Extended (Journaled) as the 'volume format' (file system). This supports all the Mac-specific functions such as aliases and resource/data forks. However, this isn't your only choice. Depending on the partition scheme, these are the file systems Mac OS 10.4 supports:
Use HFS+ with journaling if possible, especially on external drives. I've lost a lot of data because the FAT file system on a FireWire drive got corrupt after I accidentally turned off the drive while it was in use. After this, newer files started overwriting older ones, but I didn't find out until a month later. And don't format or partition an iPod using Disk Utility, because the iPod gets confused, even though it will function as an external drive.
In addition to the file systems listed above that you can use to format your drives with, Mac OS X has various levels of support for the following file systems:
See the Filesystems HOWTO for much more information on many of these. And you may want to start reading up on ZFS, Sun's revolutionary new file system that is supposed to come to the Mac with Leopard.