#HOW TO CLEAR UP SPACE ON MAC OTHER HOW TO#
#HOW TO CLEAR UP SPACE ON MAC OTHER PORTABLE#

The Time Machine drive wasnвЂ™t plugged our MacBook at this point in time, so thatвЂ™s a local snapshot stored entirely on our Mac. For example, in the screenshot below, a snapshot was taken earlier in the day at 1:58 pm. YouвЂ™ll be able to do so without plugging in your Time Machine drive, as long as that old file is part of your local snapshots. To take advantage of those local snapshots, just open the Time Machine interface and try to restore an old file.

#HOW TO CLEAR UP SPACE ON MAC OTHER PORTABLE#

ItвЂ™s a safety net designed for portable laptop use. You can also recover previous versions of files from your MacвЂ™s local snapshots if you donвЂ™t have your Time Machine drive with you. You can open Time Machine and restore those files, evenВ if you havenвЂ™t actually plugged in your drive and performed a Time Machine backup in a while. These local snapshots are stored on your MacвЂ™s startup partition along with all your other files. Your Mac automatically creates them in the background, and the Time Machine icon on your menu bar wonвЂ™t even say itвЂ™s doing anythingВ as it does so. These snapshots are designed to help you recover deleted files or previous versions of files, even if your laptop is away from its Time Machine drive for a while. If youвЂ™re using a desktop Mac with Time Machine enabled, or if youвЂ™re using a Mac notebook with Time Machine disabled, your Mac wonвЂ™t bother creating local snapshots. Second, you must have enabled Time Machine to back up to an external drive. First, you must be using a Mac notebook and not a Mac desktop PC. Local snapshots are onlyВ created if two things are true.

#HOW TO CLEAR UP SPACE ON MAC OTHER HOW TO#

RELATED: How to Back Up Your Mac and Restore Files With Time Machine You canвЂ™t normally see or access these backup files - use the commands below if you need to quickly remove them from your MacвЂ™s internal storage.

The вЂњBackupsвЂќ category here represents your local snapshots.

To see how much space those local Time Machine backups are consuming, click the Apple icon on the menu bar, click About This Mac, and click theВ Storage heading. RELATED: How to Free Up Disk Space on a Mac

How to clear up space on mac other