Declutter your Mac with these 10 tips

Introduction

Something about becoming organized makes you feel fantastic about taking on the clutter and gives you a lot more mental space. But, of course, organizing doesn’t have to end with the trash cabinet beneath the stairs; our Macs, too, require some care. For optimal performance, your Mac needs the Best Mac Cleaning software. However, if you don’t pay attention, your Mac will get too cluttered, and it will be challenging to discover the right programs, files, or connections.

Decluttering the items on your computer would do wonders for your productivity, creativity, and stress levels. But why is it important to declutter, and how do you accomplish it?

Why Do You Need To Declutter Your Mac?

Storage is usually my primary motivation for organizing, but it’s not the only one. One can quickly get disorganized with a mountain of desktop icons, a significant backlog of duplicate files, and a museum of old emails.

If you worked from home for most of 2020, your Mac was probably put to good use. But, unfortunately, your system became cluttered. Therefore, you’ve arrived at the perfect location if you wish to arrange yourself.

10 Tips For Effective Mac Decluttering

You may use the following advice to organize your Mac:

1. Organize your desktop

The desktop helps keep files and shortcuts, so it soon gets cluttered. Find the apps you seldom use and delete their desktop icons to clear up clutter. Keep a week’s worth of documents in a single folder for your files, which you will label with the current date. Then make a folder for the week after that, and put your weekly folders in that folder. This maintains all files in the same place.

Alternately, you might use the Stacks program with the Mojave operating system. Your desktop may be automatically organized with Stacks by classifying files into tidy groups according to the kind of file.

How to Utilize stacks:

Make a right-click on your desktop to bring up the desktop menu.
Opt for Use Stacks.

Simple, your desktop now seems organized and serene.

2. Examine and remove bookmarks

While some are useful, most bookmarks are merely unnecessary clutter. Determine which ones you use frequently and remove the others.

How to check your Chrome bookmarks:

Choose Bookmarks from the top menu while Chrome is open.
Select the three dots next to each item to manage by opening Bookmark Manager.

How to verify your Safari bookmarked pages:

First, select Bookmarks from the top menu after launching Safari.
Next, click Edit Bookmarks, then choose Delete by right-clicking on a bookmark.

3. Manage storage

Apple comes with a built-in solution that may assist you in managing all the chaos; it is easy to use, and it can help you recoup orders and storage. Apple’s advice for clearing out clutter on your Mac is as follows:

First, launch the Apple menu by clicking the top left button.
Next, select the Storage tab after choosing About This Mac.
Click Manage now.
Review the recommendations and make any necessary adjustments.
You may go through every item in the sidebar and get rid of anything you don’t need.

4. Clean your system junk

There isn’t any system trash or clutter. All sorts of apps leave behind temporary, damaged files and stuff; clearing your trash system will increase performance and free up space.

5. Remove unnecessary photos

Photos are a terrific way to keep memories alive, but they use up memory on your computer. Delete any images that are hazy or blurry or those you cannot utilize or do not value. The same applies to videos.

6. Sort your emails

Make it a routine to delete irrelevant emails from your inbox. If there are any you can respond to in less than five minutes, do so. You may move those that would require more time to react to a folder labelled “Work in Progress” or something like that and work on them as you have the time. Utilize a separate folder to archive important emails. Unsubscribe from newsletters. You don’t need to get fewer emails.

7. Clean your contacts

It’s nice to have your network members’ contact information on your Mac since you never know when you’ll need to get in touch with someone. However, it may be time to remove contacts from your list and make some room if you have individuals whose faces you can’t recall.

8. Remove large and old files.

Removing big and outdated files is necessary if one of the primary reasons you want to clean your Mac is because you don’t have enough free storage space. Where are they all, though is the issue. They frequently hide in locations that you don’t often check. As a result, you can use cleaning programs or spend hours manually searching for files.

9. Clear out your downloads folder

Duplicate files and outdated zip files litter my downloads folder. It’s a terrific spot to tidy and restore storage space. Before putting the rest in the trash, you should sort the objects by size and review each individually. After organizing your downloads, wipe away your trash.

10. Tidy your login items

When were your login items last configured? This straightforward method cleans up your Mac’s startup clutter and boosts speed.

How to cut down on login things:

Applications that launch automatically at starting are known as login items.

System Preferences may be accessed by choosing the Apple menu.
Choosing Users & Groups.
Select the Login Items tab at the top and choose your name from the left sidebar.
Select the things you wish to delete, then click the “—” button in the window’s lower left corner.

The Bottom Line

There are times when our computers need to be cleaned. Therefore, clearing up the clutter on your computer will significantly improve your creativity, productivity, and stress levels. But if care isn’t paid, problems will also result. Nevertheless, following the procedures mentioned above might effectively and sufficiently declutter your Mac.