Earlier, I wrote a post on how to make your old computer last longer and it help alleviate my storage issues but I was still having issues determining which files to delete on my laptop. I basically have 500 GB of internal storage and 4TB on my external USB drive.

The problem I was having was that even if I cleared out around 90 GB of storage on my laptop after six months I was back to having 10 GB of space on my computer. That basically meant that my computer was really slow. I didn’t even bother making videos anymore and working on the Adobe suite (like Adobe Illustrator or Adobe Photoshop) was a slow process. Working on the Adobe software wasted a lot of time. It took a long time to save files and process anything on the software. Luckily I was at my brother’s place who helps me with anything Mac related.

FOUR OPTIONS WHEN YOUR COMPUTER IS RUNNING SLOW

1. Upgrade your computer with a larger capacity internal storage
2. Purchase a new computer with a larger capacity internal storage
3. Purchase an external storage which I already did
4. Maintain your computer and continuously delete unused files, delete large files, archive old files

As I debated my options, I was wavering on my first option since it was pricy to purchase a larger 1 TB internal storage for my computer. It cost $450 and I spent a lot of money on DIY projects this summer (installing door knobs and update a room by painting it) that I didn’t want to spend more for computer storage.

Option two was even more expensive so that really wasn’t an option I was considering.

I already purchased an external hard drive several months before. In order to get my computer to work much faster, I needed to clear out space from my internal hard drive.

The last option of maintaining my computer and consistently deleting unnecessary files and archiving old files on my backup storage was the best option for me. 🙂

APPS / SOFTWARE TO HELP CLEAN UP YOUR COMPUTER:

My brother suggested the two apps which I ended up buying:

1. GrandPerspective: Helps you find out where all your storage space is being used ($1.99)
2. CleanMyMac 3: Helps to suggest what unnecessary files to delete ($40). It deletes temporary files and cached files. So it’s nice to install and have the software suggest files to delete.

I highly recommend both. For $1.99 GrandPerspective is definitely worth it!

The best purchase is an app called GrandPerspective. The app was inexpensive at $2. This app helps you to visually see the things that you store on your computer and the location of the file which is priceless. Before the Mac would tell me that photos and movies take the most space on my computer. Since I didn’t know the location of the file, I didn’t take any action at all.

GrandPerspective helps you to visually see the space consuming files and act on it. Based on the image below, there were two blocks of files that looked identical (on the far left). Each block was using 100 GB of storage. For a total of 200 GB. Those were my photo files. I was glad that GrandPerspective told me the location of the file. I was able to archive both files. I also made sure to move my photo library on my 4 TB backup storage.

My brother basically helped me take control of my computer and freed up over 200 GB of space. I’m so happy 🙂 that he was able to suggest the software and taught me what to do. Thanks Kuya 🙂 (a tagalog name meaning “older brother”). Now I feel like I have a brand new computer.

I plan to put the files that I use regularly back on my laptop so that my computer can process and access the files much faster. Once I’m done using the files, I have to be better about archiving the files back on my backup storage. That’s the plan.