How to Find Hidden, Duplicate, or Large Files on a Mac

Managing free space on your Mac can be a tedious task, but there are some tricks to make it easier to identify files that can be removed. In this post, we will tell you how to find large, duplicate, and hidden files on your Mac. There may be multiple ways to do this, so make sure to pick the one that you find to be the most convenient:

How to Locate Large Files

Open the Apple Menu -> About This Mac -> Storage. Select 'Manage' and then click on 'Reduce Clutter' -> 'Review Files.' This will show you an automatically generated list with the largest files on your computer. You can sort them by type to focus on media, documents, or other types of files you wish to remove.

If you are using an older version of Mac, you can open Finder, then click on the 'Show items in a list' option from the Tools menu bar. Use the button combination Command + F to load Finder's search options. From there, select 'File Size' and then 'is greater than' – this will allow you to search for sites over a certain size. This is excellent for finding old, large downloads that you no longer need.

How to Find Duplicate Files

Open iTunes and go to View -> Show Duplicate Items. This is the quickest way to discover duplicate media and documents that may be taking a lot of hard drive space without being needed.

How to Show Hidden Files

Both Windows and macOS tend to hide specific files or folders to prevent users from accessing them easily. Needless to say, tampering with hidden files is not recommended unless you are 100% certain that you are deleting unnecessary files, which will not break anything. If you still wish to show hidden files, then:

1. Open the Terminal.
2. Enter defaults, write com.apple.Finder AppleShowAllFiles true.
3. Enter killall Finder to restart Finder, and apply the change from step two.