Manage Your Storage
The multiple-terabyte hard drives of today may seem to have solved all our storage problems, but that doesn’t mean we haven’t found ways to fill up every bit of the storage we have. And while desktop Macs have bulked up their storage space over the years, laptop Macs actually have less storage than models from six or seven years ago, as Apple has transitioned from mechanical hard drives to solid-state storage: the MacBook Air has at most 512 GB of flash storage.
In the past, apps like WhatSize and CleanMyMac helped Mac users with spring cleaning rituals, but now Sierra offers a range of tools to help you wrangle your bytes year round. You’ll find them all ① by choosing Apple > About this Mac > Storage and clicking the Manage button.
In this chapter, we’ll look at each of these options, starting with Store in iCloud and continuing with Optimize Storage, Empty Trash Automatically, and Reduce Clutter.
Store in iCloud
Instead of keeping all your files on your drive, this option stores the contents of your Desktop, Documents, and Photos library in iCloud Drive. If storage is scarce, only recently opened files and low-resolution photos will stay on your Mac. The result is not only storage savings, but also the ability to access these items from any of your Macs or iOS devices that have iCloud Drive on and are signed in with the same Apple ID.
Click the Store in iCloud button to see two checkboxes ②. I recommend that you read about what they do, below, before selecting either of them. With that done, you can select one or both and then click Store in iCloud.
Store files from Desktop and Documents folders in iCloud Drive
Once you’ve turned on this feature, here’s where you can find your folders:
- From the Finder: In the Finder window sidebar, the Desktop and Documents folders appear under a new iCloud header ③.
- From the Finder: Choose Go > Desktop (Command-Shift-D) or Go > Documents (Command-Shift-O)
- From the Web: Open Safari or another Web browser, go to iCloud.com, and sign in with your Apple ID and password. Click iCloud Drive. You see the Desktop and Documents folders alongside app folders and any files you’ve stored directly in iCloud.
- From your iOS device: Whether you’re running iOS 9 or 10, you can access your Mac’s Desktop and Documents folders. Just open the iCloud Drive app on your device and tap the folder you want ④.
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From another Sierra Mac: According to Apple, when you add another Mac’s Desktop and Documents folders, they will appear as subfolders labeled with the Mac’s name. For instance, the second Mac’s Desktop folder will appear inside the primary Mac’s Desktop folder in iCloud Drive with the name Desktop - Mac Name. Likewise, the second Mac’s Documents folder will appear inside the primary Mac’s Documents folder in iCloud Drive with the name Documents - Mac Name.
With that in mind, make sure to turn on this feature for your primary Mac first to avoid having to root through subfolders more than necessary.
However, various Take Control authors and editors are seeing inconsistent behavior from this feature. Sometimes the Macs’ folders merge—we saw the contents of both Documents folders, for instance, when we clicked Documents in the Finder window sidebar. The effect is as if you have One Mac that you can reach from multiple devices.
If you like that approach, you can set it up manually if you’ve ended up with subfolders for the second Mac. Move the contents of a subfolder into its parent Desktop or Documents folder and then delete the subfolder. (You can do this for either or both of the Desktop and Documents folders.)
- From an older Mac: From a Mac that’s running 10.10 Yosemite or 10.11 El Capitan, you can access your Sierra Mac’s Desktop and Documents folders through iCloud Drive (in the Finder window sidebar).
With iCloud storage enabled, if you add a file to your Documents folder—whether you do so in the Finder on your Mac, from the iCloud Web site, or on an iOS device—it will appear everywhere in the Documents folder.
Likewise, if you delete a file from the Documents folder, it disappears from the Documents folder in all views and on all devices—the same is true for the Desktop folder.
If you’re worried about deleting a file from iCloud Drive (and, by association, all your devices) by accident, choose Finder > Preferences and make sure that Show Warning before Removing from iCloud Drive is selected.
If you plan to work on something away from an Internet connection—say, on an airplane—you’ll want a local copy of the file. To see what’s stored where, click the Documents folder in the Finder window sidebar and look for a Download 
icon next to an item’s name. That indicates that the file is located online only. Click the Download icon and you’ll see a progress bar as the file copies to your Mac’s drive.
Turning off Desktop & Documents
Go to System Preferences > iCloud, click the Options button next to iCloud Drive, and deselect the Desktop & Documents Folders checkbox. Click the Turn Off button to proceed.
The contents of your Desktop and Documents folders remain in iCloud, so you’ll have to copy them back to your Mac’s normal (local) Desktop and Documents folders manually if you want them there.
Store Photos and Videos in iCloud Photo Library
This box gives you another way to turn on iCloud Photo Library, a feature that has been available since 2014. When you select it, Sierra uploads to iCloud full-resolution versions of all the photos and videos in your main (“System”) Photos library, defaulting to the Optimize Mac Storage setting that generally keeps “optimized” (a.k.a. lower-resolution) versions on your drive. The benefits of this are two-fold: you not only save space on your Mac, but also can access your photos from all your Apple devices and from the Web.
Changes made to a photo on one device reflect across all your devices.
Here’s where to find your photos:
- Photos app on the Mac: When you open this app on the Mac, photos should appear as usual.
- Web: Open Safari or another Web browser, go to iCloud.com, and sign in with your Apple ID and password. Click the Photos icon. You see photos organized by Moments and Albums.
- Photos app in iOS: On a device running at least iOS 8.1, tap Settings > Photos & Camera, and then turn on the iCloud Photo Library switch. Now you should be able to see photos from your Sierra Mac by opening the Photos app on your iOS device.
- Apple TV: Sign in to a fourth-generation Apple TV with the same iCloud Apple ID and look in the Photos app.
This feature is ideal on a laptop or a secondary Mac where space is at a premium. If you have sufficient space, however, consider leaving the Optimize Mac Storage setting turned off for better performance. You will be able to see images on all your devices, but you will not have to wait for originals to download when you need them.
To disable Optimize Mac Storage so that full-resolution photos appear on your Mac, open the Photos app and choose Photos > Preferences > iCloud and select Download Originals to This Mac. The Optimize Mac Storage button toggles off.
If you ever decide you don’t want to store your photos in the cloud at all, open the Photos app and choose Photos > Preferences > iCloud and deselect iCloud Photo Library ⑧.
Be aware that if you decide to turn this setting back on later, uploading your photos may take days.
Optimize Storage
When you choose Apple > About This Mac > Storage and click the Manage button, the second category is Optimize Storage. By default, this category has an Optimize button that you can click to see two choices ⑨—select one or both and then click Optimize to start. (This category looks somewhat different if you’ve already turned on one or both of these optimization possibilities.)
Automatically Remove Watched iTunes Movies and TV shows
The first checkbox under Optimize Storage is an easy win—few of us need those movie files after the fact, and boy, do they take up loads of space!
To change your iTunes settings later, open iTunes, choose iTunes > Preferences > Advanced, and deselect Automatically Delete Watched Movies and TV Shows.
To download a video you’ve already watched (and that has therefore been deleted), go to iTunes and choose Movies or TV Shows from the Media Picker pop-up menu near the left of the navigation bar. Click the Library button in the navigation bar and then click the Download icon next to the show’s name ⑩.
Download Only Recent Attachments
The second choice under Optimize Storage affects your email attachments in the Mail app. Click the pop-up menu and choose either Download Only Recent Attachments or Don’t Automatically Download Attachments.
You’ve long been able to choose to not download attachments automatically in Mail; the ability to limit downloads to “recent” attachments is new. The significance of this Optimize Storage option, however, is that it saves you the trouble of choosing this download setting manually for each of your email accounts in the Mail app.
It’s a cinch to access an email attachment later, no matter what you choose (as long as you’re online). Just go to Mail and find the message in question. Hover your pointer over the line right below the message header to reveal a line of buttons ⑪, and then click the disclosure triangle next to the Attachments 
icon. Choose the attachment you want and then choose where to save it in the dialog that appears.
Empty Trash Automatically
It’s easy to dump files in the Trash and forgot all about them, but they add up, one by one, sometimes taking up loads of drive space. One of Sierra’s small, but helpful, options for managing your Mac’s storage is the ability to automatically empty your Trash after 30 days.
Choose Apple > About This Mac > Storage and click the Manage button. Next to Empty Trash Automatically, click the Turn On button. Read the warning and then click Turn On.
If you want to turn this setting off later, in the Finder, choose Finder > Preferences > Advanced and deselect the “Remove items from the Trash after 30 days” checkbox ⑫.
Reduce Clutter
When running out of drive space, most people’s first impulse is to start deleting files. But which files? Third-party tools that can answer this question have been available for years, but now with Sierra you can use a built-in feature to take a closer look at what’s hogging your disk.
In the Finder, choose Apple > About This Mac > Storage and click the Manage button. Then next to Reduce Clutter, click the Review Files button.
You can filter the list that appears by clicking Large Files, Downloads, or File Browser. By default, each view is displayed with the biggest files on top.
If you see a file you want to delete, hover your pointer over it to show a Remove 
icon and a Reveal 
icon. Click the Reveal icon to see the file’s location in the Finder—always a good idea if you’re unsure whether this is a duplicate file or an important file. Click the Remove icon and you’ll see a warning. Click the Remove button to proceed.
To delete multiple files at once, Shift-click to select consecutive files, Command-click to select non-contiguous files, or just press Command-A to select them all. When you’ve got what you want, Control-click (or right-click) and choose Delete. (I’ve found this technique to be especially helpful in the Downloads view ⑬.)
A warning will ask “Remove X items from disk?” (It will also let you know how much storage you’ll be freeing, which can be quite cheering.) Click Remove to delete them all. They do not appear in the Trash—they’re gone.