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No matter how much space you have on your Mac, one day, you may see a “Your disk is almost full” notification. Even if it seems like there is no app or program that would take a considerable amount of storage, the large files may be hidden deep down in your Mac’s memory. Keep reading to discover how to locate such files on your Mac and delete them for good.

This article is for Windows and Mac; By default, Carbonite does not automatically select large files to avoid complications with the backup. Refer to the table below to determine the limit that Carbonite sets for individual files based on your Carbonite plan.

I want to use the Photos.app option 'Optimize Mac Storage' to free up space on my Mac, rather than downloading my entire iCloud Photos Library to my small laptop SSD. Is there any way to strictly limit the space given to the Photos library? I want to give, say, 40 GB to Photos. As you can see, my Photos application is 56.4 MB, while my Photos Library is 13.38 GB. Photos for Mac uses the same hierarchy as Photos for iOS — intelligently grouping images and videos into moments, collections, and years. That lets Photos for Mac show you small moments in time and space, like yesterday at the park, but also collections of moments marked by larger changes, like that party across town or that week at the beach, and even an entire year all at once. You must be at least 18 years old. Apple or its trade-in partners reserve the right to refuse or limit any trade-in transaction for any reason. In-store trade-in requires presentation of a valid, government-issued photo ID (local law may require saving this information). Additional terms from Apple or Apple’s trade-in partners may apply.

Scan the most obvious place

When looking for large files on their Macs, users often start scanning a bunch of folders stored on their machines. But, usually, the most common destination of all large files is the Downloads folder. You may automatically download thousands of files and forget to remove them. So, checking the Downloads folder on your Mac may help you find lots of forgotten large files and documents that you don’t need anymore.

Looking for the large items may take some time. Free tools, like CleanMyMac X, can accelerate the process by scanning your Mac’s memory and detecting large files. The only task left for you will be to remove the found files all at once.

Find large files using Finder

Another way to search for large files is by using search filters in Finder. It can help you locate the biggest files on your Mac. Here’s how to find large files using Finder:

1. Open Finder.
2. Find the Search field in the top right and click it.
3. Click the Settings symbol and select Show Search Criteria.
4. In the list of search filters on the left, choose Other.
5. In the window that appears, select File Size and click OK.
6. In the second space, select Is greater than and enter the size in the third space.
7. Choose KB, MB, or GB in a final filter field.

Remember to select This Mac to get a full list of results. You will then see all files which size is greater than you defined. Look through the found documents and remove unnecessary items that take too much space on your Mac.

Although, this method has certain disadvantages. Finder doesn’t give you a full picture of the large files stored on your Mac. It shows only single files, excluding large folders that comprise a lot of smaller items.

It’s also unclear which files you can safely delete without the risk of removing important documents. Finder neither provides any additional information about files nor shows which folder the file belongs to. So, it’s difficult to decide whether the large file is important or not.

Continue reading to discover how to find the largest files on your Mac using other methods.

Find large files using the Storage Management app

Another solution is to use the built-in Storage Management app.

1. Choose Apple menu.
2. Select About This Mac.
3. In the window that appears, click Storage. Here you can see how much free storage you have and view the amount of space used by different categories.
4. Click Manage.
5. As the Storage Management app opens, select Documents.
6. Browse the Large Files to delete those you don’t need.

Click any file to see its path at the bottom of the window. The Storage Management app also shows the exact size of each document as well as the date you opened it last.

Apple provides helpful recommendations at the top left to help you optimize your storage. Here you can choose to store all your files in iCloud, remove large files like movies and TV shows, turn on Empty Trash Automatically, and reduce clutter.

This method is great for those who don’t have a lot of large files on their Mac. But, if you tend to keep many files on your machine, you may consider using the Storage Management app tiresome.

How to find biggest files on Mac via Terminal

Another way to locate large files on your Mac is to use Terminal. Although some users find commands complicated, if you use them correctly, you can find anything on your Mac. So, you can locate the biggest files on your device, just like that:

How Big Can A Mac Photos Library Be

1. Go to Utilities and open Terminal.
2. Execute find command. If you want to locate all files bigger than 1G under the /home directory, for example, type find /home -size 1G.
3. To delete the files enter
   find /home -type f -name *.avi -size +2G -exec rm {}
   This command will remove all AVI files that are greater than 2GB under the /home directory.

Using this command, you can also limit your search, setting size filters. Then your command will look like this: find /home -size +30M -size -100M. This command will locate all files that are greater than 30MB but less than 100MB.

Locate and remove large files using CleanMyMac X

If you have enough time, you can look through all data stored on your Mac using the methods described above. In case you want to speed up the process, CleanMyMac X can prove useful. Thanks to its Large & Old files feature, you can look at the bigger picture of all large files found on your Mac and delete them altogether.

Here’s a short instruction on how to find and delete large files using CleanMyMac X:

1. Download the free version of CleanMyMac X and open the app once it’s installed.
2. Click the Large & Old Files tab.
3. Run a quick scan.
4. CleanMyMac X will show you all files stored on your Mac. You can sort files based on their size, type, and access date, to see the large items that can be removed from your Mac.
5. Check the boxes for the files you want to delete and click Remove.

Using CleanMyMac X, you can remove all unnecessary files quickly and make some space for more important documents.

Mac Photos Maximum Library Size Limit

So, these were some simple methods of how to view all files on Mac and delete them. You can either use Finder, the Storage Management app, or Terminal to find the biggest files on your Mac and clean up your machine of them.