--- title: "What is taking up space on my Mac? 4 ways to find out" description: "Four ways to see what is using your Mac’s storage: Storage settings, Finder, Terminal and a visual disk map, plus what is usually safe to remove." url: https://tidymac.space/guides/what-is-taking-up-space-on-my-mac/ updated: 2026-10-16 --- [Home](/) [Guides](/guides/) What is taking up space on my Mac? 4 ways to find out # What is taking up space on my Mac? Four ways to see what is using your Mac’s storage: Storage settings, Finder, Terminal and a visual disk map, plus what is usually safe to remove. 5 min readUpdated October 16, 2026By the Tidy Mac team Short answer Open System Settings › General › Storage for the overview, then dig in: Finder can sort folders by size, Terminal’s du command lists the biggest folders in seconds, and a disk map app shows the whole drive as a picture. The usual big users are videos and downloads, iPhone backups, Time Machine snapshots, app caches and developer files. The steps 1. Open System Settings › General › Storage and look at the coloured bar. 2. In Finder, turn on View › Show View Options › Calculate all sizes and sort by size. 3. In Terminal, list the biggest folders with du -sh. 4. Use a disk map to see everything at once, including System Data. ## 1\. Storage settings (built in) **System Settings › General › Storage** shows Apps, Documents, Photos, System Data and more. Click the ⓘ next to a category for recommendations. It doesn’t break down System Data. ## 2\. Finder Open your home folder in List view, choose **View › Show View Options**, tick **Calculate all sizes**, then sort by Size. Hidden folders such as ~/Library need **⇧⌘.** to show. ## 3\. Terminal (fastest) ``` du -sh ~/* ~/Library/* 2>/dev/null | sort -h | tail -20 ``` [More Terminal commands](/guides/check-disk-space-mac-terminal/) ![](/img/brand/tidy-128.png) ### Let Tidy Mac do this for you See every part of your storage explained, and clear junk to the Trash with Undo. $9.99 once, 2 Macs. [Download](/download/TidyMac.dmg) [Buy for $9.99 once](/buy/) ## 4\. A disk map A map shows every folder as a slice sized by space used, so the biggest things are obvious. Tidy Mac’s Space Map draws any folder as a treemap or sunburst, counts cloned files once, and lets you hover for details or click to go deeper. [Mac storage manager](/mac-storage-manager/) ## The usual suspects Videos and old downloads, [iPhone backups](/learn/iphone-backups-on-mac/), [Time Machine snapshots](/learn/time-machine-local-snapshots/), [app caches](/learn/mac-app-caches/), Xcode and Docker, and local AI models. [Find large files](/guides/find-large-files-mac/) ## Keep reading [What is “Other” storage on a Mac, and where did it go?](/guides/what-is-other-storage-on-mac/)[Free disk space analyzers for Mac: GrandPerspective, OmniDiskSweeper, Disk Inventory X and macOS’s own](/guides/free-disk-space-analyzer-mac/)[How to find large files on your Mac](/guides/find-large-files-mac/)[How to check disk space on a Mac in Terminal](/guides/check-disk-space-mac-terminal/)[Clear System Data on your Mac with Terminal](/guides/clear-system-data-mac-terminal/)[Clear System Data on macOS Tahoe](/guides/clear-system-data-macos-tahoe/) Share:[X](https://x.com/intent/post?text=What%20is%20taking%20up%20space%20on%20my%20Mac%3F&url=https%3A%2F%2Ftidymac.space%2Fguides%2Fwhat-is-taking-up-space-on-my-mac%2F)[Reddit](https://www.reddit.com/submit?url=https%3A%2F%2Ftidymac.space%2Fguides%2Fwhat-is-taking-up-space-on-my-mac%2F&title=What%20is%20taking%20up%20space%20on%20my%20Mac%3F)[Hacker News](https://news.ycombinator.com/submitlink?u=https%3A%2F%2Ftidymac.space%2Fguides%2Fwhat-is-taking-up-space-on-my-mac%2F&t=What%20is%20taking%20up%20space%20on%20my%20Mac%3F)[LinkedIn](https://www.linkedin.com/sharing/share-offsite/?url=https%3A%2F%2Ftidymac.space%2Fguides%2Fwhat-is-taking-up-space-on-my-mac%2F) #### On this page [1\. Storage settings (built in)](#1-storage-settings-built-in)[2\. Finder](#2-finder)[3\. Terminal (fastest)](#3-terminal-fastest)[4\. A disk map](#4-a-disk-map)[The usual suspects](#the-usual-suspects) **Tidy Mac** See this on your own Mac in under a minute. $9.99 once, 2 Macs. [Download](/download/TidyMac.dmg)