Large File Cleanup

Videos, installers, archives, and old projects are often just a few files, yet they can take up a lot of space. Large File Cleanup finds them by size and lets you decide what stays.

#Choose a scan scope

In the location selector at the top right, select Common Folders (Downloads, Documents, Pictures, Videos, Music), recently used folders, or disks, or click Choose folder… to add another location. You can select several at once. The more specific the scope, the faster the scan and the easier the results are to review.

Minimum size can be 50 MB, 100 MB, 500 MB, 1 GB, or 5 GB. The default is 100 MB.

#Quick Scan and Complete Scan

Start Scan uses Quick Scan by default. Use the arrow next to the button to switch:

• Quick Scan: uses the Spotlight index for speed, but may miss files that have not been indexed yet.
• Complete Scan: walks the selected locations for more complete results. The time it takes depends on the number of files.

If a file you expect is missing, try again with Complete Scan. Both methods follow your Scan exclusions and automatically skip system folders, /Applications and /Library at the root of the disk, and folders managed by developer tools such as the Go module cache, Homebrew, MacPorts, Nix or Conda. Those files can't be deleted one by one and removing them breaks builds; use the matching Deep Cleanup item instead. To remove apps themselves, use App Uninstaller.

#Filter and sort

The top of the results shows how many files were found and how much space they use. Filter by Video, Audio, Documents, Archives, Images, AI models, or Other, and click the File name, Size, or Modified column headers to sort. Click a path to show the file's location in Finder.

Changing Minimum size after a scan filters the current results without scanning again. When there are many results, only the largest 2,000 files are listed. If you change the scan scope or your scan exclusions, click Scan Again before you can delete anything.

#Delete files permanently

• One file: hover over its row and click the Delete Permanently icon, or right-click it and choose Open, Show in File Manager, or Delete Permanently.
• Several files: select the files (the checkbox in the header selects all current results), then click Delete Permanently at the bottom. The bottom bar shows the number of selected files and the Estimated space to free.

After you confirm, the files are deleted directly. They do not go to the Trash and cannot be recovered. Files that changed or became unavailable after the scan are skipped automatically. Deletions are recorded in Operation History.