Shortcuts make the process of clearing your Mac 's cache extremely fast and easy. Here's how to do it: 1. Press shift-command-G with your Finder window open. Sort the processes by Memory and look for programs at the top of the list that you don’t recognize. If you spot any problem applications, go into the Control Panel, click on Programs and Features, and uninstall those problem applications. Clean Up Startup Programs. Clean up your Mac manually. Go to cache and delete the contents – that is what the cache cleaning on Mac is about. Open Finder, select “Go”, click “Go to folder”, type “Library/Caches/”, remove certain cache files, and empty trash. Fix a lot of browser related errors by Mac safari cache cleaning. CleanMyMac X scans your Mac for junk and lets you remove all trashed files. To do that, launch CleanMyMac X and press Scan. When the scan is completed, click Review Details to see what exactly CleanMyMac X has found. I’ve already cleaned Bin a couple of weeks before, but over some time, almost a gigabyte of trashed files has accumulated. Apple Menu About This Mac Memory In the case of my iMac, I have 24 GB of RAM installed. By clicking 'Memory Upgrade Instructions' I confirmed that 32 GB is the maximum amount my iMac.
Many of your daily computer activities — like opening programs, logging onto email, and navigating websites — are saved as temporary files within your computer. This is called caching, which, as puts it, “helps reduce internet data usage and speed up software installation on Mac computers, iOS and iPadOS devices, and Apple TV.”
How To Clean Up Imac Memory File
When you visit a website, for example, your browser will download data like images, scripts, and login credentials and save it all in a cached folder. When you visit that same site in the future, your browser simply (and quickly) loads data from the folder it's already created. That way, your computer doesn’t have to spend time downloading all of that information again — it can just pull it from the cache.
There are a few different types of cached data: user or app data that saves information for certain apps; system cache, which your operating system uses to save process information; and browser cache, which saves your web browsing activity.
Convenient, right? But it’s important to clear this cached information every now and then to keep your data safe and free up disk space, which helps your operating system run more smoothly. If you’re having issues with certain apps, it may also be time to clear your cache.
Here's how to get the job done. (Keep in mind: After clearing this data, you may find that when you visit certain websites, you will need to enter your credentials even if you didn’t have to before.)
How to clear your user/app cache on Mac
Mac makes it easy to clear your cached data using simple keyboard shortcuts.
From your Finder window, hit shift, command, and G.
The “Go to Folder” window will pop up. Enter the following command in the search box: ~/Library/Caches. You can also access this command by opening Finder and navigating to Go > Go to Folder from the menu.
Hit the 'Go' button. A folder will open that includes your Mac’s cached files.
From this screen, you can browse each folder and manually delete specific cached files by dragging them to the Trash (and later emptying the Trash). If you know the specific app or process you want to clear, you can select the folder and move it to Trash.
If you want to clear your entire system cache, hit command and A to select every folder, then hit command and delete.
A window will pop up confirming you want to delete the files and asking you for your Mac’s password.
Once you enter your password, Mac will clear your cache.
How to clear your system cache on Mac
System cache doesn’t take up as much space as app or user cache. These are typically files generated by Mac’s operating system, which means you should be a bit more careful when choosing what to delete. You don't want to accidentally erase important files that keep your system running normally.
If you know what you’re doing and the specific system folders you want to empty, here’s how to access your system cache.
From your Finder window, hit shift, command, and G.
The “Go to Folder” window will pop up. Enter the following command in the search box: /Library/Caches (without the ~ that you used above). You can also access this command by opening Finder and navigating to Go > Go to Folder from the menu.
Take care not to delete the actual folder, but you can clear their contents by dragging them to = Trash. Then, make sure to empty your Trash.
SEE ALSO: Photos of an extremely cool-looking Macintosh Classic prototype surface online
How to clear your browser cache
Clearing your browser cache is relatively easy, but instructions will vary depending on what browser you use. Here’s how to clear your cache in Google Chrome, Safari, and Firefox.
Google Chrome
Open Chrome.
From the hamburger menu in the top right toolbar, select More Tools > Clear Browsing Data
From the “Clear Browsing Data” window choose the time range of data you want to clear. Select 'all time' to delete everything.
Check the boxes marked 'Cookies and other site data' and 'Cached images and files.” Check “browsing history” if you’d like to delete this information, too.
Hit the “clear data” button.
Safari
Open Safari.
From the Safari drop down menu, select Preferences.
Navigate to the Advanced tab. Check the box marked, “Show Develop menu in menu bar.” Close the window.
From the toolbar, select the Develop drop down menu and click Empty Cache. If you want to delete your browser history, select the History drop down, then Clear History.
Firefox
Open Firefox.
From the browser’s main menu, select History > Clear Recent History.
From the window that pops up, select the time range of data you want to clear: last hour, last two hours, last four hours, today or everything. Select 'Everything' to delete all cached data.
Click on the arrow next to'Details,” which will allow you to choose the data you want to delete. To delete everything, make sure each box is checked. To only delete your browser cache, just check the box labeled “Cache.”
Click on the 'Clear now' button to delete your data.
At a glance
Cons
Our Verdict
Editor’s note: The following review is part of Macworld’s GemFest 2013. Every day (except Sunday) from mid-July until late September, the Macworld staff will use the Mac Gems blog to briefly cover a standout free or low-cost program. Learn more about GemFest in this Macworld podcast. You can view a list of this year’s apps, updated daily, on our handy GemFest page, and you can visit the Mac Gems homepage for past Mac Gems reviews.
How To Clean Up Imac Memory
Conventional wisdom says you can never have enough RAM in your Mac. But how about making the most of the RAM you do have? This is the entire premise of Memory Clean 2.8 (Mac App Store link), Fiplabs’ free memory utility designed to purge inactive memory to help free it up for later use.
If your work involves software like Final Cut Pro, Photoshop, Premiere, CAD programs and other high-end memory-intensive applications, you’ll appreciate reclaiming several hundred megabytes of RAM or more at a go.
Memory Clean runs in the background after you launch it, and a convenient menu bar interface shows how much RAM is available at any given time. Clicking on the menu bar opens the application and allows the memory to be purged on a whim. Right-click or control-click the menu bar interface or press Command-, to pull up a Preferences menu and configure settings as display options, application visibility in OS X, and when to automatically clean out the memory if RAM drops below a specified threshold level.
During testing, Memory Clean held its own, freeing up over 700MB of RAM after using applications such as Microsoft Word, iMovie, Left 4 Dead 2, and Adobe Photoshop CS6. To activate a memory purge, open Memory Clean, click Clean Memory and allow your Mac 30 to 60 seconds to free what RAM it can.
Right-clicking Memory Clean on the menu bar to open its preference settings isn’t an intuitive function and this could stand to be addressed in short order. Still, once you know about the function, the issue becomes moot.
Memory Clean is free, simple, effective and it does what it purports to do very well and with little hassle or addition to OS X’s overall system load. It’s nice to get several hundred megabytes of usable RAM back with a few mouse clicks.
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