How to find large files on a Mac

When the disk is full, the quickest win is usually a handful of large files you forgot about: an old virtual machine, a video export, a folder of installers. Here are four ways to find them, from the one already on your Mac to the one that shows everything at once.

1. The Large Files list in Storage settings

Open System Settings ▸ General ▸ Storage and click the ⓘ next to Documents. The Large Files tab lists your biggest files, largest first, and you can delete them right there.

It's the easiest place to start. It only covers documents in your home folder, though, and only files, not folders.

2. A Finder search by size

The Finder can search by file size across the whole Mac:

1. Open a Finder window and press ⌘F. Click This Mac.
2. Click the first pop-up menu (it says Kind) and choose Other…. Find File Size, tick it, and click OK.
3. Set it to is greater than 1 GB, or 500 MB for a longer list.
4. Switch to list view (⌘2) and click the Size column to sort.

Click Save to keep the search in the sidebar. It uses Spotlight, so it's instant, but it skips anything Spotlight doesn't index: hidden folders, most of ~/Library, and some external drives. That's where Docker's disk image and Xcode's simulators are, so they won't show up here.

3. One command in the Terminal

find looks at every file, hidden or not. This lists the files over 1 GB in your home folder, with their sizes:

find ~ -type f -size +1G -exec ls -lh {} + 2>/dev/null

Change +1G to +500M for a longer list, or ~ to / for the whole disk. It reads every folder, so on a large home folder it takes a minute or more, and Terminal needs Full Disk Access to see everything.

Large folders matter as much as large files

A size search finds single big files. It misses the other half: folders of many small files. A node_modules folder, a photo library or a cache of 200,000 thumbnails can take 20 GB without a single file over 100 MB. To find those, you need folder totals, like du -h -d 1 ~ | sort -h or the Finder's Calculate all sizes.

4. A treemap: files and folders together

A treemap shows both at once. Every file is a block sized to the space it takes up, and every folder is a block made of its contents. A single large file is one big flat block; a folder of many small files is an area of tiny ones, the same total size.

Layland scans a 3.3-million-file home folder in about 14 seconds. Once the map is up:

• Hover over any block for its path and size.
• Press ⌘] to select the largest item inside a folder, again and again, to get to the biggest file in a few keystrokes.
• Search for part of a name, like .dmg, .mov or .zip, and everything else dims.
• Color by age (View ▸ Color By ▸ Last Modified) to see what hasn't changed in years. Big and old is the easiest thing to delete.

Then press space to preview a file with Quick Look, or choose Item ▸ Move to Trash. Nothing is deleted permanently; it all goes to the Trash first. Scanning and the full map are free; file names, search and the actions need a license.

What to look for

• Disk images and installers (.dmg, .pkg, .iso) in Downloads, after the app is installed.
• Video: screen recordings, exports and camera footage, often in Movies or on the Desktop.
• Virtual machines from Parallels, UTM or VMware, tens of gigabytes each.
• Archives (.zip) you've already unpacked.
• Old iPhone and iPad backups in ~/Library/Application Support/MobileSync/Backup.

When you've deleted what you need to, empty the Trash. The space isn't freed until you do.

Questions

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