• How To Delete Mac Downloads
• How To Remove Downloads From Mac
• How To Clear Downloads On Macbook
• Clean Downloads Folder Mac

Once you choose the secure erasing option, click OK and then on the 'Erase' button to completely delete all the files on the disk. If your Mac has multiple hard drives with multiple partitions. If you opened those files in the download folder and changed/edited them and didn't do a SAVE AS, you just saved them, then they got resaved ubnder the original file names and to the download folder. So check all those files for your edits/changes and if those are the files you changed then don't delete them. How to delete cache files on Mac from Finder. Press Shift + Command (⌘) + G to launch Finder on your iMac or MacBook Pro. Enter the following command into the search box: /Library/Caches. This will bring you to the folder that contains all of your cached files. Press Command (⌘) + A to select all folders.

Automated Cleaning. As power users, we all like to automate things, so in order to have your Mac automatically clear its history, we can create a Calendar Alarm using Automator. “One of the most preferred Mac cleaning utilities in 2021” Compatibility: Mac OS X El.

Many of your daily computer activities — like opening programs, logging onto email, and navigating websites — are saved as temporary files within your computer. This is called caching, which, as Apple puts it, “helps reduce internet data usage and speed up software installation on Mac computers, iOS and iPadOS devices, and Apple TV.”

When you visit a website, for example, your browser will download data like images, scripts, and login credentials and save it all in a cached folder. When you visit that same site in the future, your browser simply (and quickly) loads data from the folder it's already created. That way, your computer doesn’t have to spend time downloading all of that information again — it can just pull it from the cache.

There are a few different types of cached data: user or app data that saves information for certain apps; system cache, which your operating system uses to save process information; and browser cache, which saves your web browsing activity.

Convenient, right? But it’s important to clear this cached information every now and then to keep your data safe and free up disk space, which helps your operating system run more smoothly. If you’re having issues with certain apps, it may also be time to clear your cache.

Here's how to get the job done. (Keep in mind: After clearing this data, you may find that when you visit certain websites, you will need to enter your credentials even if you didn’t have to before.)

How to clear your user/app cache on Mac

Mac makes it easy to clear your cached data using simple keyboard shortcuts.

• From your Finder window, hit shift, command, and G.

• The “Go to Folder” window will pop up. Enter the following command in the search box: ~/Library/Caches. You can also access this command by opening Finder and navigating to Go > Go to Folder from the menu.

• Hit the 'Go' button. A folder will open that includes your Mac’s cached files.

• From this screen, you can browse each folder and manually delete specific cached files by dragging them to the Trash (and later emptying the Trash). If you know the specific app or process you want to clear, you can select the folder and move it to Trash.

• If you want to clear your entire system cache, hit command and A to select every folder, then hit command and delete.

• A window will pop up confirming you want to delete the files and asking you for your Mac’s password.

Once you enter your password, Mac will clear your cache.

How to clear your system cache on Mac

System cache doesn’t take up as much space as app or user cache. These are typically files generated by Mac’s operating system, which means you should be a bit more careful when choosing what to delete. You don't want to accidentally erase important files that keep your system running normally.

If you know what you’re doing and the specific system folders you want to empty, here’s how to access your system cache.

• From your Finder window, hit shift, command, and G.

• The “Go to Folder” window will pop up. Enter the following command in the search box: /Library/Caches (without the ~ that you used above). You can also access this command by opening Finder and navigating to Go > Go to Folder from the menu.

• Take care not to delete the actual folder, but you can clear their contents by dragging them to = Trash. Then, make sure to empty your Trash.

SEE ALSO: Photos of an extremely cool-looking Macintosh Classic prototype surface online

How to clear your browser cache

Clearing your browser cache is relatively easy, but instructions will vary depending on what browser you use. Here’s how to clear your cache in Google Chrome, Safari, and Firefox.

Google Chrome

• Open Chrome.

• From the hamburger menu in the top right toolbar, select More Tools > Clear Browsing Data

• From the “Clear Browsing Data” window choose the time range of data you want to clear. Select 'all time' to delete everything.

• Check the boxes marked 'Cookies and other site data' and 'Cached images and files.” Check “browsing history” if you’d like to delete this information, too.

• Hit the “clear data” button.

Safari

• Open Safari.

• From the Safari drop down menu, select Preferences.

• Navigate to the Advanced tab. Check the box marked, “Show Develop menu in menu bar.” Close the window.

• From the toolbar, select the Develop drop down menu and click Empty Cache. If you want to delete your browser history, select the History drop down, then Clear History.

Firefox

• Open Firefox.

• From the browser’s main menu, select History > Clear Recent History.

• From the window that pops up, select the time range of data you want to clear: last hour, last two hours, last four hours, today or everything. Select 'Everything' to delete all cached data.

• Click on the arrow next to'Details,” which will allow you to choose the data you want to delete. To delete everything, make sure each box is checked. To only delete your browser cache, just check the box labeled “Cache.”

• Click on the 'Clear now' button to delete your data.

How To Delete Mac Downloads

System cleanup in one click

It’s practically impossible to go through a day of working on Mac and not download anything: coworkers send us files for review, friends send us new funny memes, or we download new app installers ourselves.

Most of the files we download we only need to see or use once, but we rarely have the discipline to delete them right then and there. Over time, this leads to our hard drives overflowing with files and folders we don’t actually want, straining our system’s resources and pushing us to spend to upgrade storage.

No more! Today, we’ll show you how to clear downloads on Mac in just a few minutes, potentially freeing up gigabytes of space and giving a new boost to your Mac.

Get Setapp to get rid of downloads

Setapp gives you a combo of the best cleanup app, CleanMyMac X, and a powerful duplicate removal app, Gemini.

How to Delete Downloads on Mac

Nearly all files we download to our Macs end up either on your Desktop or in the Downloads folder. While the former is always visible and thus much easier to take care of, the latter quickly turns into the never-ending stream of files.

The first step to learning how to clear downloads on Mac is to find where the Downloads folder is actually located. By default, you can click on the Finder icon in your Dock and then select Downloads from the sidebar, you can choose Downloads from the Finder’s Go menu bar, or you can use the Option + ⌘ + L shortcut.

If you have hundreds or even thousands of files in the Downloads folder, deleting all of them (⌘ + A and Delete) might be risky — what if there’s something you might need? At the same time, going through all files one by one could take hours.

A good solution here is to group all files in the folder by size, so that the heaviest items will automatically be displayed at the top and would be easy to scan through and delete, getting you 80% of results with 20% of the effort.

To group files by size, right-click at the white space within a folder and select Group By ➙ Size. Then delete all the heavy offenders either with ⌘ + Delete or right-click ➙ Move to Trash.

How to find and delete hidden download folders

Most of the time your online files end up in the Downloads folder, which we covered above. However, if you’re frequently using various apps where you download files, they might as well end up in some proprietary folders in the heart of your Mac.

We’ve all been using Zoom, for example, in the past year. We also record a lot of conversations to be able to reference them later. Where those conversations get downloaded, though, might be a mystery to you.

To check on where Zoom stores all downloads, open up Preferences (⌘ + ,) and select Recording. Then click Open next to the “Store my recordings at:” and delete all unnecessary files within that folder. Finally use the dropdown to set that folders to regular Downloads.

Repeat the steps with every app from which you download files.

How to get rid of duplicate files

What happens more often than we realize is that we download a file from somewhere, use it once, and then a few days later forget where it is and download it again. This results in the proliferation of duplicates that serve no useful purpose at all. Deleting them is a no-brainer way to increase the amount of free space on your Mac. But how do you go about it?

Gemini is one of the most popular duplicate removers in the world. If you haven’t been removing duplicates regularly up until now, this app can save you gigabytes of space in seconds. Gemini is able to scan any folder and find the same files across images, video, audio, and more, even if they have different names. The app works for similar files as well, and Gemini preselects everything that’s safe to delete automatically.

Here’s how to use Gemini to delete duplicate files:

1. Launch Gemini
2. Click the plus icon
3. Select Home ➙ Choose
4. Click Scan for Duplicates
5. Click Smart Cleanup

How to clear downloads on Mac overall

Your Mac’s unused files and folders don’t stop at Downloads. Over the years, you might’ve accumulated so much more that you just don’t notice every day.

Luckily, we can reuse the trick described above for the Downloads folder to find unneeded files across your Mac:

1. Open any Finder window
2. Search for a . (dot), which is present in any file name
3. Switch the search to This Mac
4. Right-click and pick Sort By ➙ Size
5. Scan the top files and delete the ones you don’t need

This method is still a bit of a hack and while it tells you the size of the files it doesn’t tell you how often you’ve used them. For better results, you need a specialized app.

CleanMyMac X is a very powerful Mac optimizer that’s able to clean and speed up your Mac with just a few clicks. You can, for example, scan your Mac for malware, quit heavy tasks, update and uninstall apps, and more. One of CleanMyMac’s most underused features is called Large & Old Files, which scans all of your Mac for things that take up space and that you’re not using.

To find Large and Old Files with CleanMyMac X:

1. Launch CleanMyMac X
2. Navigate to the Large & Old Files tab
3. Click Scan
4. Check the files you don’t need
5. Click Remove

How to remove downloads from Mac browsers

Tracking downloaded files through browsers can be a useful way to find the files you don’t need anymore. Browsers themselves don’t keep your files — they just provide a list of recently downloaded items.

After a heavy purge, however, it’s useful to clean up the list of downloads in your browser as well, so you can track everything from scratch.

To remove downloads in Safari:

How To Remove Downloads From Mac

1. Click the Downloads icon in the top bar
2. Select Clear

To delete downloads in Firefox:

How To Clear Downloads On Macbook

1. Go to Tools ➙ Downloads (⌘ + J)
2. Click Clear Downloads

To clear downloads in Google Chrome:

1. Go to Window ➙ Downloads (Shift + ⌘ + J)
2. Click the three-dot menu and pick “Clear all”

You can also make all these actions effortless with CleanMyMac X, which has a way to clear all history and downloads from all browsers at once:

1. Launch CleanMyMac X
2. Navigate to the Privacy tab
3. Go to each of your browsers and check Downloads History
4. Click Remove

As you can see, when you know how to delete downloads on Mac, it takes just a few minutes, especially if you use apps like Gemini and CleanMyMac X.

Best of all, Gemini and CleanMyMac X are both available to you absolutely free for seven days through the trial of Setapp, a platform with more than 200 Mac apps that will supercharge your productivity, from unzipping archives with BetterZip to getting the best sound out of your speakers with Boom 3D. Try every Setapp app today at no cost and be amazed how quickly your life can change for the better.

Clean Downloads Folder Mac