How to Clear Purgeable Space and Optimize Your Mac‘s Storage

As a Mac user, you‘re probably all too familiar with the neverending quest for more storage space. No matter how large your hard drive is, it seems to fill up faster than you expect. Between apps, media, documents, and system files, even a 1TB drive can feel cramped after a while.

One often overlooked culprit of disappearing disk space is "purgeable space." Introduced in macOS Sierra, purgeable space is Apple‘s way of automatically offloading certain files when your Mac is running low on available storage. While this feature can help free up space in a pinch, it‘s not a complete storage solution.

In this guide, we‘ll take an in-depth look at purgeable space on macOS – what it is, how to check it, and most importantly, how to clear it and optimize your Mac‘s storage for the long haul. By the end of this article, you‘ll be equipped with the knowledge and tools to take back control of your hard drive. Let‘s dive in!

Understanding Purgeable Space on macOS

Before we jump into the how-to, let‘s take a moment to understand what exactly purgeable space is and how it works on macOS. Here‘s what you need to know:

What is Purgeable Space?

In simple terms, purgeable space is hard drive space that‘s taken up by files that macOS can automatically delete if your Mac starts running out of storage. These "purgeable files" are usually things like:

• Movies and TV shows that you‘ve already watched in iTunes
• Old email attachments, drafts, and cached messages
• Files stored in iCloud Drive that can be re-downloaded
• Foreign language dictionaries that your Mac can download on-demand

Basically, any file that macOS deems "non-essential" and/or able to be re-downloaded is fair game to be marked as purgeable. The idea is that these files can be safely removed in the background when you need extra space, without you having to manually locate and delete them.

How Does Purgeable Space Work?

The purgeable space feature is part of macOS‘s built-in storage optimization tool set. When enabled, your Mac will continuously monitor your available storage in the background. If your hard drive starts getting full, macOS will begin quietly clearing out purgeable files to free up space.

However, this doesn‘t mean those files are gone forever. Since purgeable files are by definition those that can be re-downloaded, you can still access them again in the future if needed. macOS will simply grab them again from iCloud, the App Store, or whatever their original source was.

It‘s important to note that you can‘t directly control which files are marked as purgeable – that‘s entirely up to macOS‘s algorithms. Apple states that only "files that you seldom use and can download again" are eligible for purging.

Purgeable Space Stats & Data

So how much of a Mac‘s storage is typically taken up by purgeable space? While the exact amount varies based on each individual system, here are some interesting statistics:

• Purgeable space can often account for 10-20% of a Mac‘s total storage capacity (Source)
• It‘s not uncommon for Macs to have 20GB, 50GB, or even 100GB+ of purgeable data (Source)
• According to a 2021 survey, the average American‘s digital footprint is now over 850GB (Source)

As we can see, purgeable files can easily take up a significant chunk of space on the average Mac user‘s hard drive. And with Apple offering Macs with upwards of 8TB of storage, those purgeable GBs will only continue to grow. All the more reason to stay on top of clearing out purgeable space periodically!

How to Check Purgeable Space on Your Mac

Now that we know what purgeable space is, let‘s walk through how to actually check how much of it is on your Mac. The process is quite straightforward:

1. Click the Apple logo in your Mac‘s menu bar and select "About This Mac"
2. In the window that appears, navigate to the "Storage" tab
3. Look for a dashed/hatched [1]grey[1] bar – hovering over this will display the amount of "Purgeable" space

Note that if you don‘t see a "Purgeable" section in your storage breakdown, it likely means you don‘t have the "Optimize Mac Storage" feature enabled. Here‘s how to turn it on:

1. Click the "Manage…" button in the Storage window
2. Select the "Optimize" option in the "Optimize Storage" section
3. Give your Mac a moment to re-analyze the storage, then check the breakdown again

Alternatively, you can also use the Terminal command tmutil listlocalsnapshots / to see a list of your Mac‘s local Time Machine snapshots, which are also stored as purgeable space.

Keep in mind that the amount of purgeable space on your Mac is constantly fluctuating as macOS works in the background. Don‘t be alarmed if the number changes pretty significantly from one day to the next – this is expected behavior.

How to Clear Purgeable Space on Mac

So you‘ve identified a good chunk of purgeable space on your Mac – now what? In most cases, you actually don‘t need to do anything. Remember, the whole point of purgeable space is that macOS can automatically clear out those files when needed, without any intervention from you.

However, there are a couple reasons you may want to proactively clear your Mac‘s purgeable files:

• If your hard drive is critically low on space and you need to free up storage ASAP
• If you‘re planning to sell/give away your Mac and want to minimize the amount of personal data left behind

Whatever the reason, here are a few methods you can use to purge purgeable space from your Mac:

Method 1: Delete Watched Movies/Shows in iTunes

One of the most common sources of purgeable files is content you‘ve already watched in iTunes (now called the TV app). Fortunately, it‘s easy to remove this data:

1. Open the Apple TV app on your Mac
2. Navigate to your Library
3. Click the "Watched" tab and select "Movies" or "TV Shows"
4. Hover over an item and click the [X] icon to remove the downloaded file

Note that you‘re not deleting the actual movies/shows from your library – you‘re just removing the locally downloaded copies to free up space. You can always re-download them again later.

Method 2: Clear Out Old Mail Attachments & Messages

Another frequent purgeable space hog is old emails and attachments in the Mail app. To clear these out:

1. Open the Mail app and select a mailbox
2. Click "Mailbox" in the menu bar and choose "Erase Deleted Items"
3. Select "Erase" to confirm

This will permanently delete any messages in your Trash/Deleted Items folder. You can also manually delete large email attachments:

1. In Mail, click "View" > "Sort By" > "Attachments"
2. Select and delete any large attachments you no longer need

Keep in mind that deleted emails are not recoverable, so make sure you really don‘t need a message before erasing it.

Method 3: Use a Mac Cleaning App

Perhaps the quickest and most effective way to clear out purgeable space is to use a dedicated Mac cleaning utility like CleanMyMac X. These tools can automatically scan your system for purgeable files and other junk data to delete in bulk.

To use CleanMyMac X:

1. Download and install the app on your Mac
2. Launch CleanMyMac X and click "Smart Scan"
3. After the scan completes, select "Clean" next to "System Junk" and "Mail Attachments"
4. Click "Run" to begin clearing out the selected purgeable files

CleanMyMac X makes it super simple to get rid of multiple GBs worth of purgeable and unnecessary data in just a few clicks. While it does require a paid license, the app is well worth it for the convenience and peace of mind it provides.

Here‘s a quick comparison chart of some top Mac cleaner apps:

App	Price	Key Features
CleanMyMac X	$34.95/year	Smart Scan, Malware Removal, Speedup Tools
CCleaner	$24.95/year	Junk Cleaner, Startup Optimization
DaisyDisk	$9.99 one-time	Disk Space Analyzer & Visualizer
AppCleaner	Free	Finds Leftover Files from Deleted Apps

Of course, you can also clear out purgeable files manually (which we‘ll discuss next). But a dedicated cleaner tool makes the process much faster and easier, especially if you have a lot of data to sort through.

Method 4: Manually Delete Unnecessary Files

Finally, you can take a manual approach to clearing out purgeable space by digging through your Mac‘s files and folders yourself. This is the most labor-intensive method, but it also gives you the most control over what gets deleted.

Here are some common areas to check for purgeable or otherwise unnecessary files:

• Downloads: Old DMG files, apps, ZIP archives, etc. in your Downloads folder
• Documents: Outdated documents, duplicate files, anything that can be stored in cloud instead
• Photos: Duplicate, blurry, or unwanted photos in the Photos app library
• iTunes: Old iOS backups, outdated media files, unused ringtones, etc.
• Caches: App caches, browser caches, and system cache files

To dive deeper, you can use a disk space analyzer app like DaisyDisk or Disk Inventory X to visualize your Mac‘s storage and pinpoint large files/folders that can be deleted.

The key is to be intentional about what you delete – don‘t just start trashing things haphazardly. If you‘re unsure about a file, err on the side of keeping it or moving it to an external drive rather than deleting it outright.

Additional Tips for Managing Mac Storage

Beyond clearing purgeable space, here are a few more tips to help keep your Mac‘s storage in check:

1. Enable Optimized Storage Features: Go to About This Mac > Storage > Optimize to enable settings like automatically emptying trash and reducing clutter.

2. Use Cloud Storage: Move documents, photos, and other files to iCloud Drive or another cloud storage service to free up local disk space.

3. Uninstall Unused Apps: Regularly audit your applications folder and remove any apps you no longer use. You can always reinstall them later if needed.

4. Compress Large Files: Use a file compression utility like Keka to shrink down large files that you can‘t delete but don‘t need frequent access to.

5. Use External Storage: Offload large media libraries, backups, and archives to an external hard drive or NAS to conserve space on your Mac‘s internal drive.

By combining these tips with periodic purgeable space clearing, you can keep your Mac running lean and mean for the long haul.

Final Thoughts

Clearing out purgeable space is an often overlooked but highly effective way to reclaim precious storage on your Mac. By taking the time to understand what purgeable files are and how to safely delete them, you can keep your hard drive happy and healthy.

Whether you prefer a manual approach or want to save time with a cleaning utility, the important thing is to make storage management a regular part of your Mac maintenance routine. Your future self will thank you!

With the tips and tools outlined in this guide, you‘re well-equipped to tackle purgeable space head on. Here‘s to a clutter-free Mac and many more GBs of available storage. Happy cleaning!