In this article, we are going to tell you how to delete downloads on a mac.
If you frequently download items to your Mac from the internet, some of those you might not use or require anymore could soon fill up your limited storage space. Particularly large amounts of images, videos, and music files, including app installers, can quickly fill up your Mac’s hard drive, and it’s surprisingly simple to overlook the fact that most of them are still present in your Downloads folder.
You may free up storage on your Mac by deleting downloads you no longer need, giving you the room you really have to back up more images, add more programmes, and save even more documents.
In this manual, we’ll teach you how to easily locate and arrange your downloads, pick out the ones you no longer require, and get rid of them all with a few simple clicks.
1. What Is the Mac’s Downloads Folder Location?
All internet content that you transfer to your Mac by default ends up in the Downloads folder. This may be located in the sidebar of the Finder, below Applications and Desktop, or on the top right of your Dock, adjacent to the trash can.
You can locate it by opening the menu settings in your browser window if you’ve already altered the location of your downloads and didn’t recall where they are now.
For Safari, follow these instructions:
- Click Safari in the navigation bar of your Mac to launch it.
- After selecting Preferences, go to the General tab.
- To find out where your files are being deposited, go to the Download location.
Here’s how to locate your Chrome Browser downloads folder:
- Select Chrome in the navigation bar of your Mac to launch Chrome.
- Toggle Preferences.
- Go to Advanced under Downloads to see where downloads are being saved after scrolling to the bottom of the page.
2. How to Remove Downloads on a Mac
It’s time to start deleting downloads from your Mac once you’ve arranged your Downloads folder and found the stuff you no longer require. If you need to delete numerous files, there are quicker ways to accomplish this than by right-clicking each and every one separately and choosing Shift to Bin or Move to Trash.
Follow the instructions below to choose and remove numerous files at once:
- Keep the Command key pressed on your Mac’s keyboard.
- To remove a file from your Installation directory, left-click it.
- Drop the Command key, then choose Move in Bin or Start moving to Trash when you right-click.
You may choose and remove all downloads fast by following these instructions if you have shifted any documents you would like to keep outside of your Downloads directory, and you wish to erase anything that is still there:
- Right-click and choose Move to Garbage or Move to Bin from the menu.
- To choose all items on your Mac, hit the A key while holding down the Command key.
Use this option only if you’re certain you want to remove every download from your Mac.
The unnecessary downloads have been deleted from their save place, but you still need to completely erase everything from your Mac, so they are still occupying storage space. Emptying the garbage can or bin will help you get rid of them for good. Do this by doing the following:
- Right-click the garbage or rubbish can in the Dock of your Mac.
- Choose an Empty Trash Can or Empty Bin.
You’re done; the files are deleted, as well as the storage capacity they used has been released. Keep in mind that a Mac cleaning application like MacKeeper can help you finish a lot of this work more quickly.
3. Another Way
Downloads and other things using up that space on your Mac might be removed in another way. This approach may be easier for certain people. Therefore we’ve added it to this manual just in case:
You can remove the files from the Downloads folder in your MacBook by finding it.
- Open the Downloads directory.
- To pick each file, use Command+A.
- Expand the Menu button there at top of the display once the files have been highlighted, then choose Move to Trash. Alternatively, press Command+Delete on your keyboard.
- Move to Trash is chosen in the Finder File menu.
- The files are transferred to the trash container.
- Choose “Empty Trash” first from the Finder menu and remove all of the trash from the computer.
- Empty Trash is selected in the Finder menu. Make absolutely sure this really is what you intend to do since there is no “redo” from all of this.
4. Remove Any Remaining Evidence of Your Downloads
Although the actual files have been wiped from your Mac, their remnants remain. There will be a history with all of that info in the browser if you use a chrome browser to download the files.
Finding the location of these files is simple, thanks to the fact that web browsers like Safari, Google Chrome, and Firefox keep a history of all your downloads. Although you download things, the browser doesn’t actually hold that data.
The following actions will show you how to access the download history in Firefox, Safari, and Google Chrome.
4.1. The Safari Browser’s History Can be Deleted.
- Fire up the Safari web browser.
- To access the browser history, select History inside the menu bar.
- To delete the record of your downloads, select Clean History there at bottom of the menu.
- Select all history in the shake window if you want to remove all of it, or select another option if you desire to be more specific. To finish the procedure, choose Clear History one other time.
- Time-span settings are visible in the window that deletes history.
4.2. The Chrome Browser’s History Can be Cleared.
- To delete the downloading history from Chrome, choose Downloads through your Window bar.
- The Downloads option is chosen in the Windows menu in the Chrome browser.
- Select Clear all by tapping the three points in the upper right-hand corner of the downloads page.
- Clear all highlighted items in the Chrome menu
- The previous downloads are deleted.
See also –How to block websites on iPhone: A Complete Guide
Last Updated on March 13, 2023 by Laveleena Sharma