How to Find the Largest Files on Your Mac

Storage rarely disappears into tens of thousands of small files. More often it goes to a handful of big ones: a 4K screen recording, a virtual machine image, a few installers you never deleted. Finding them usually frees space faster than clearing caches. But finding them is only the first step, and the biggest file isn't automatically the one to delete.

#Where large files usually hide

#Method 1: Check Storage settings

Choose Apple menu > System Settings, click General, click Storage, then click the Info button next to Documents. Here you can quickly view large files and downloads, sort by Size, and select a file to Show in Finder or Delete it. File Browser lists space by folder, which helps when a big folder is made of many small files. The Info button next to Applications can sort your apps by size too.

#Method 2: Search by size in the Finder

1. Open a Finder window and press Command-F.
2. Choose This Mac as the search location.
3. Click the leftmost pop-up menu of the search criteria (Kind by default), choose Other, select File Size in the attribute list, then click OK.
4. Set the condition to "is greater than", enter 1 and choose GB.
5. Switch to list view and sort by size. Select a file and press the Space bar to preview it.

If you get too few results, lower the threshold to 500 MB; if you get too many, add a Kind condition to narrow them down. Finder search relies on the Spotlight index, so locations excluded from indexing and system files don't appear.

#Method 3: List large files in Terminal

find ~ -type f -size +1G -exec du -h {} + 2>/dev/null | sort -h

This lists every file larger than 1 GB in your home folder, sorted by size with the largest at the bottom. It only reads information and changes nothing. For a different threshold, change +1G to something like +500M. Without Full Disk Access, Terminal can't read some protected folders.

#Once you've found them: delete, move or keep

• Delete: installers for apps you've already installed, archives you've extracted, exported videos you know are backed up.
• Move first, then delete: personal photos, videos and project files. Copy them to an external drive or backup, open a few to check them, then delete the local copies.
• Handle inside the app: Photos libraries, video editing libraries, virtual machines and device backups. For device backups, connect the device, select it in the Finder, click Manage Backups in the General tab, then Control-click a backup to delete or archive it.
• Leave alone: files in /System or /private, and files inside app bundles.

Take extra care with iCloud Drive. Deleting a file there also deletes it from your other devices signed in to the same Apple Account. If you only want to free space on this Mac, Control-click the file and choose Remove Download; the file stays in iCloud.

#Filter by size and type with WashBear

Large File Cleanup puts the searching and filtering above on a single page:

1. In the location selector at the top right, select Common Folders (Downloads, Documents, Pictures, Videos, Music), a disk, or click Choose folder… to add another location. You can select several at once.
2. Set Minimum size: 50 MB, 100 MB (the default), 500 MB, 1 GB or 5 GB.
3. Click Start Scan. The default Quick Scan uses the Spotlight index, which is fast but may miss files that haven't been indexed yet. If a file you expect is missing, use the arrow next to the button to switch to Complete Scan.

You can filter the results by Video, Audio, Documents, Archives, Images, AI models and Other, and sort by File name, Size or Modified. Click a path to see the file's location in the Finder, or right-click a file to Open, Show in File Manager or Delete Permanently. When you select several files, the bottom bar shows the Estimated space to free.

Large File Cleanup automatically skips system folders, as well as /Applications and /Library at the root of the disk, so apps themselves never show up as large files; use App Uninstaller for those. If the space is taken by a folder full of small files, none of them large on its own, use Disk Space Analysis to look at folders instead.

#Frequently asked questions

#Do I need to keep DMG and PKG files after installing an app?

Usually not. They're installation files, not the app itself. Keep them only if you need to reinstall offline or want to hold on to a specific older version.

#How can I tell what a large file is for?

Press the Space bar to preview it, then press Command-I to open the Info window and check its kind, creation date and location. Files downloaded from the internet usually also show where they came from. If the file sits in an app's own folder, or inside a library such as your Photos library, the app manages it, so deal with it in that app.

#Why doesn't my search find a large folder?

Searching by file size only looks at individual files. A folder can be made of thousands of small files, none of which reaches the threshold. Use File Browser in Storage settings, the du command from our System Data guide, or Disk Space Analysis to look at folders instead.