It’s time to declutter your messy macOS

macOS System Cleaning Guide: Say goodbye to the mess and improve efficiency!

After using it for a long time, the macOS system is like a garage or desk, and it is easy to become messy. Files, applications and other digital garbage piles up, often unknowingly slowing down daily computing tasks.

Quick cleaning of your Mac system can bring significant changes, allowing you to easily find files or applications without having to do a large-scale system reinstallation. Here are some effective cleaning tips:

Desktop Cleaning

Many people are used to stacking various files and shortcuts on the desktop at will, which not only blocks wallpaper, but also slows down macOS and increases the difficulty of finding the required files.

Finder provides some built-in options to help you solve this problem. Click on the empty area of ​​the desktop and open the View menu: You can use the Organize option to arrange everything on the desktop into the grid to make it look tidy. Additionally, you can use the By menu to select the sorting method (such as by name or date).

In the View menu, you can also find the Use Stacking option. This option takes desktop collation to the next level by stacking files of the same type, such as images or documents, together—just click on the stack to view individual items again. Once stacking is enabled, click View and then click Group by stack to change its sorting.

If you use your desktop as a temporary storage space, here is a suggestion that requires more manual operation: Create a "temporary" folder on the desktop and use it as a replacement for the actual desktop, only for storage No long-term saving files are required. You can then periodically delete everything in that folder without worrying about data loss.

Interface organization

You can organize the appearance of macOS in a number of ways, especially in the menu bar at the top of the screen and the Dock at the bottom. Perhaps the best starting point is to reduce the number of applications allowed to be displayed in the menu bar, but this requires you to go deep into the settings of each application.

You can use some third-party options, such as Bartender. The software costs $20, but you can try it for free first: it allows you to apply various custom settings to the menu bar and can completely change its appearance as needed. You can also place the selected menu bar icon into the submenu, making the menu bar look simpler.

In terms of organizing Docks, you can use more built-in settings for macOS – open the Apple menu, select System Settings and select Desktop & Dock to view these settings. Here you can hide Dock (when not in use), hide suggested and recently used app shortcuts, and turn the app startup animation on or off. You can also resize the Dock.

If you think there are some shortcuts in the Dock that won't work, right-click them and select Options and Remove from Dock. In just a few minutes, you can have a cleaner, easier to operate Dock – and it is not even visible when not in use.

Delete temporary files

Temporary files accumulate quickly in macOS and are not always obvious – you end up only getting to the point where the operating system is running slowly and you receive messages about storage space issues. When this happens, macOS provides the appropriate tools to help you.

Open the Apple menu and select System Settings, General, and Storage. At the top of the dialog, you should see storage usage on your Mac – so you can quickly refer to the most serious culprits when it comes to taking up space.

Below this storage space read, you should see several suggestions provided by macOS on how to free up space. These suggestions vary based on your system settings, but you may see links to delete viewed Apple TV content, clear the trash, or move certain items to iCloud. Click on any suggestions you like and follow the instructions.

Sometimes, you can find relevant settings in each application. For example, in Apple Photos, open the Photos menu and select Settings: Under the iCloud tab, you can let the app reduce the quality of local photos and videos stored on your Mac while retaining the full resolution version in the cloud .

Uninstall unused applications

One of the best ways to free up Mac computer space and clean up the Launchpad and Applications folder screens at the same time is to delete applications that you don't use frequently. Remember that you can reinstall them at any time, which is a low-maintenance cleaning technique.

If you open the Apple menu and select System Settings, General, and Storage Spaces, you can click the smaller "i" information button next to "Apps" to see the maximum space taken up program. To actually delete them, you need to launch Finder and open the "Apps" link on the left (or select "Apps" from the "Go to" menu).

The process of deleting software varies from application to application. Sometimes a folder appears on the Applications screen with the official uninstall tool. For other applications, you can drag the program shortcut to the Trash icon on the Dock and uninstall it this way. If you are unsure, look for instructions online about the specific application you are trying to remove from your system.

Even if you don't uninstall the apps, you can make sure they don't boot up at the same time as the operating system - unless you want them to do so - and take up valuable CPU time and RAM space. If you open the Apple menu and select System Settings, General, and Login and Extensions, you can choose which programs are allowed to be launched and run in the background with macOS.

The above is the detailed content of It’s time to declutter your messy macOS. For more information, please follow other related articles on the PHP Chinese website!