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Macbook Air Storage is almost full

I have deleted big files on my computer and have bought more icloud storage (which I thought was where everything is automatically stored) but still storage is almost full. I must be missing a step.

MacBook Air 11″, macOS 10.15

Posted on Jan 22, 2021 9:33 AM

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Question marked as Top-ranking reply

Posted on Jan 22, 2021 9:39 AM

Perhaps some tips here:

How to free up storage space on your Mac - Apple Support

4 replies

Jan 23, 2021 12:59 PM in response to JoPatterson

Hi Jo. Yes, I think you are downloading or having a lot of files somewhere you don't know exactly where it is (but it seems it is not your iCloud drive).


Usually I have a lot of things on the desktop folder, documents, downloads, etc. Have you checked those folders? Please delete as many files as you can from there. Also, make sure you configure your browsers and apps to download stuff to the iCloud drive. For example, in Safari you should go to the preferences > General > Download location.


An app which is super useful is CleanMyMac X, I do not know if it has a trial version but you should definetely try it.



Jan 24, 2021 9:00 AM in response to JoPatterson

iCloud is perhaps the most misunderstood feature Apple offers. iCloud is not intended to be offsite storage like an external hard drive. It is really set up to be syncing storage so things on one device are also on all devices signed into that Apple ID too. So adding a file to iCloud won't necessarily get it off your computer, it will just get it onto other devices using iCloud Drive too.There are optimization settings you can use to help free up some space on a computer but depending upon if what you can have can be optimized you may not see much effect on space. If you really want more storage on your computer , buy two external hard drives (one for backing up the other) and keep bulky files on those.


Optimization (if you use it) stores some little used things in iCloud instead of on your computer, and stores full quality photos in iCloud so only reduced quality, and smaller, versions are on your computer.

Macbook Air Storage is almost full

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