How to Find Hidden, Duplicate, or Large Files on a Mac

Although the capacity of hard drives has increased in the past years significantly, the same also can be said about the size of the programs, video games, media, and image files we have to store on said drives. As a result, users still have to go through their computers frequently and look for unused applications and files to delete to free up space. Mac users can take advantage of the built-in features of their computers to speed up the process when trying to locate large, duplicate, or hidden files to remove.

Let's start with finding large files on your Mac, as that is the fastest way to increase the available space on your drive. Open any Finder window, go to the 'Tools' menu, and select 'Show items in a list.' Then, press the Cmd + F keys on your keyboard to open Finder's search options. From the available parameters, choose 'File Size,' then 'is greater than,' and set a size threshold. 

Duplicate files also can take up valuable space on your hard drive. However, searching for and removing them one by one can become quite tedious. To make the process more efficient, users can try using the Smart Folder feature. Open Finder and then press Command+Option+N on your keyboard. In the new window, click on the Plus button and select the exact files and folders that meet your criteria. More options can be accessed through the 'Other...' button. Now, open each file that has the same name or size and remove any duplicates that show up.

If you are trying to remove audio or video duplicate files specifically, you can do so through the Music and Apple TV applications. The instructions are nearly identical for both. We will use the Music application as an example. Start Music and go to 'Songs.' Click on 'File,' followed by 'Library,' and then 'Show Duplicate Items.' Examine the displayed results and delete the ones you no longer need.

To get rid of invisible files or hidden cache files, users must first make them visible. One possible method is to use the Terminal application. Open it, type defaults write com.apple.Finder AppleShowAllFiles true in the Terminal window, and press 'Enter.' Now, users will have to restart Finder. You can do so via the killall Finder command. All hidden files should now be displayed.

To reverse the change and hide the files once more, simply type the same command as the previous time but this time put 'false' at the end instead of 'true.'