Sep 08, 2021 • Filed to: Solve Mac Problems • Proven solutions
The Mac OS X Disk Utility app provides an ability to erase free space on traditional hard drives, which overwrites vacant disk space on the drive to prevent any potential recovery of deleted files (that is, files that have been removed traditionally, rather than through secure methods). For most users this is an unnecessary procedure, but if. The Macube Cleaner cleaner can free up space on your Mac disk by deleting system cached files, logs, duplicate files, large or old files, mail caches/attachments, etc. It makes it simple to remove purgeable files on Mac. Step 1 Download and install Macube Cleaner on your Mac. Step 2 Run Macube Cleaner.
Every time you delete any file or document on the Mac hard drive it creates free space. This free space can be utilized for storing other data. However, if this free space doesn’t get overwritten, then it can be used to retrieve the previous data that it held using a data recovery tool. Now, if you are selling the hard drive of your Mac and don’t want the person buying it to recover the documents that you deleted then you must erase free space on Mac hard drive. However, make sure that the erasure is done securely without damaging the hard disk.
Part 1: How to Erase Free Space on Hard Drives in Mac OS X
You will have to use the Disk Utility app provided by your Mac OS X toerase free space on Mac hard drive. It offers you the chance to overwrite on the free space left on your hard disk so that no one can retrieve the data that was previously stored on it. However, do keep in mind that this method for free space erasure is only applicable for traditional hard drive and won’t work on SSD versions that utilize flash memory.
- The initial step is to start the Disk Utility app. This app is located in the utility menu which can itself be found in the Applications menu. You can use the Launchpad for launching this app as well.
- If the hard drive whose free spaces you want to erase is an external hard disk then you would have to connect it to the Mac and then select it from the menu located on the left-hand side of the screen.
- Click the Erase free space button after opening the Erase tab.
- Pick the level of erasure you want and then click the Erase free space to start the overwriting process on the hard drive’s vacant spaces.
- There are three different erasure options available to you which are Fastest, Secure, and Most Secure. Fastest option overwrites the free space just once while Secure and Most Secure options do that three and seven times respectively.
- Select any of the erasure options that you like and then click the Erase free space button.
Part 2: How to Secure Erase Free Space on Hard Drives in Windows
Although the Disk Utility app of Mac OS X can erase free space on Mac hard drive, there is a chance that it might not be able to do so in a secure manner. To make sure that the erasing of the free space is completed without any damage to the hard drive then using a data erasure tool is the best option. There are various such tools available on the internet but the best one among them isStellar BitRaser for File. It can secure erase free space on hard drives and ensure that the deleted data can’t be recovered.
- Completely erases the data, ensuring that it can’t be recovered using any data recovery tool.
- Supports multiple data erase algorithms that can be used for erasing data.
- Provides a search feature for quickly search the file or document which needs to be erased from the hard drive.
- Offers the chance to erase the chat history of messaging services like Yahoo and Skype.
- Capable of erasing all traces of internet activity including the internet history maintained by popularly used browsers.
Step 1: Download Stellar BitRaser for File on your Windows PC, take out the hard drive on Mac, and connect it to Windows computer.
Step 2: Click the 'Erase Unused Space' option on the left, to select your Mac hard drive.
Step 3: Selected your Mac hard drive and click the 'Erase Now' button to process.
Step 4: After a while, the Mac hard drive erase complete and you can reboot the system.
While other data erasure tools take several passes to erase the free space on a hard drive, Stellar BitRaser only requires a single pass to erase it permanently. However, if you feel the need to take another pass then you can take two more passes. This will ensure beyond doubt that the free space on your Mac hard drive is erased forever.
For you to use Stellar BitRaser for File to erase free space on Mac hard drive, you need to take it out from your Mac first. The reason for this is that this data erasure tool isn’t compatible with Mac OS X and works only on Windows. So, you need to connect the Mac hard disk to a Windows PC before you erase the free spaces on it using Stellar BitRaser for File.
In short, deleting data on the Mac hard drive doesn’t securely erase it. It just creates free space that can be used for recovering the deleted data using a data recovery tool. So, you need to erase free space on Mac hard drive. The Disk Utility app of Mac OS X can be used for the erasure of these free spaces. However, for secure erasure, you need to make use of a reliable data erasure tool like Stellar BitRaser for File. It can erase the vacant spaces on your Mac hard drive and make sure that the data that they contained previously can’t be retrieved using anyprofessional Mac data recovery tool.
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In a Mac running on macOS Sierra, High Sierra, Mojave, you'll find a part of the Mac storage space is calculated as purgeable storage. What does purgeable mean on Mac hard drive? And more importantly, with purgeable files taking up a substantial amount of storage space on Mac, you might not be able to download a large file, install macOS update or install a certain app. So how to remove purgeable space on Mac?
Since there is no option on the Mac to find out what purgeable space is or to delete purgeable space, you need the following tips to help you get rid of purgeable storage on Mac.
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What Is Purgeable Space on Mac?
Purgeable storage space appears when Optimize Mac Storage feature is turned on in About this Mac > Storage.
Unlike Applications, iOS Files and other kinds of storage which allows us to view what files are taking up that storage space, Purgeable storage doesn't list out all the purgeable files on the Mac. So there is no way to find out what exactly Purgeable storage contains.
Generally, as its name has suggested, purgeable space is the storage space holds files that can be purged by macOS when free storage space is needed. Files marked as purgeable can be things such as:
Photos, documents that are stored in iCloud;
Purchased movies and TV shows from iTunes you've already watched and can be re-downloaded;
Large fonts, dictionaries, language files that you may never or rarely use;
System caches, logs, duplicated downloads from Safari ...
Purgeable Space Is Not Really Free Space
The available storage space of your Mac is made up of free space and purgeable space, for example, if you have 10GB free space and 56GB purgeable space on Mac, the total available space is 66GB. Purgeable space is not empty space. In fact, the purgeable files are actually taking up space on your disk. How Purgeable storage works is that when you need to download, for example, a file of 12GB, the macOS system is designed to remove some of the purgeable space to make room for the 12GB that you are going to download.
However, purgeable storage doesn't always work as expected. Sometimes, you find that you can't download a file of 12GB because your Mac says that your disk is almost full and there is 'not' enough disk space, while you can see there is 56GB purgeable space in Storage.
How to Delete Purgeable Space on Mac
It is difficult to clear Purgeable space on Mac because it is the macOS to decide what files are purgeable and when to purge these purgeable files. Users can't control when to delete purgeable storage space on Mac (and Apple suggests that you don't need to delete purgeable storage on Mac manually). However, if you are really troubled by a large amount of storage space that is taken by purgeable data, here are four methods you can try to reduce and clear Purgeable space on Mac.
Use Macube Cleaner to Clear Purgeable Space on Mac (Recommended)
One way to remove purgeable space on Mac is to delete files that may be counted as purgeable. Macube Cleaner can help you with that. The Macube Cleaner cleaner can free up space on your Mac disk by deleting system cached files, logs, duplicate files, large or old files, mail caches/attachments, etc. It makes it simple to remove purgeable files on Mac.
Step 1 Download and install Macube Cleaner on your Mac.
Step 2 Run Macube Cleaner. You should see the usage of storage space, memory space, CPU.
Step 3 You can choose todelete the items that are clogging up your memory space. For example:
- Click Junk Files. You can clean system caches, logs, app caches which may be considered as purgeable by Mac.
Erase Free Space Mac Ssd
- Click Large & Old Files, which may contain large files that are in Purgeable space. Choose all the photos, documents, movies or other files that you don't need and click Clean to remove them.
- Click Duplicate Files, where you can remove duplicated files on Mac to free up Purgeable space.
Just follow the scanned result of Macube Cleaner to clean out all the files that you don't need. After that, go to About this Mac > Storage, you'll be happy to find that you have reclaimed lots of Purgeable space with Macube Cleaner.
Delete Purgeable Space on Mac by Rebooting Your Computer
If you prefer to do the purgeable space deletion manually, an easy way to free up storage space that people usually forget is to restart your computer. You may rarely do this but it can actually reclaim some purgeable disk space that is occupied by system caches or application caches. If you have not rebooted your Mac for a long time, the amount of the purgeable memory can be large. Just click the Apple logo on your top menu bar and tap Restart, you may happy to see more space available on your Mac.
Remove Purgeable Space on Mac by Using Mac Recommendations
Secure Erase Free Space Mac
Though Apple doesn’t show you what purgeable space is, it also provides options for you to optimize your Mac storage space. Click the Apple logo at the top menu > About This Mac > Storage > Manage, you will see a few recommendations for you to manage the storage space on Mac.
Store in iCloud: This feature helps you transfer purgeable files to iCloud including files on Mac in Desktop and Documents, your photos and messages. Only the recently opened and used ones are saved locally.
Optimize Storage: The iTunes films and TV programs that you have already watched will be removed as the purgeable space.
Empty Trash Automatically: Purgeable files stored in Trash for more than 30 days will be removed.
Reduce Clutter: The files that take up large space on your Mac will be identified and you can manually select and delete to release purgeable space.
Delete Purgeable Space on Mac by Creating Large Files
Since purgeable space won't be removed until macOS thinks that it needs to make free space for new apps or files, some users developed the idea to create enough large files to reclaim the space taken up by purgeable files. Here are the steps.
Step 1 Launch Spotlight and enter Terminal. Open Terminal.
Step 2 In the Terminal window, enter the line: mkdir ~/largefiles and hit Enter. This creates a new folder called 'largefiles' on your disk.
Step 3 Then perform the line: dd if=/dev/random of=~/largefiles/largefile bs=15m, which will create a new file called 'largefile'of 15MB in the largefiles folder. This could take a while. After about 5 minutes, hit Control + C in the terminal window to end the command.
Step 4 Then perform the command like cp ~/largefiles/largefile ~/largefiles/largefile2, which will make a copy of largefile named largefile2.
Step 5 Continue to make enough copies of the large files by running the cp command. Note that you should change the name of to largefile3, largefile4, etc. to make different copies.
Step 6 Keep running the cp command until it returns with a message indicating that the disk is critically low from Mac.
Step 7 Run the command execute rm -rf ~/largefiles/. This will delete all of the largefiles you have created. Empty the files from Trash as well.
Now go back to About this Mac > Storage. You should notice that Purgeable storage is removed or reduced.
Wrap Up
How To Free Up Space On Mac
Above are the 4 ways that you can clear purgeable space on Mac. Rebooting your Mac or using Mac recommendations are reliable and easy but may not go deep enough. The Terminal method is a little complicated if you know nothing about command lines. If your free space on Mac is not enough after trying rebooting and recommendations, you can choose to get rid of purgeable storage with Macube Cleaner, which is also simple and more effective.