If you have used your Mac for a few months, you might have realized that it is getting slower and slower; it is not as fast as when you first bought it. This is natural and happens with all computers. The reason behind the slowness is unwanted files and folders that build up on your hard drive consequently taking up too much space. Fortunately, there are a few simple tips and tricks that you can use to free up space on your hard drive and possibly get your Mac working like it was brand new.
1. Remove language and printer files on your Mac
Mac comes with preinstalled printer drivers and language perks; most of which you will not use. For instance, you might never see the use of sending a Cyrillic text or see yourself ever owning an Epson printer. Clearly, Mac wasn't ready to make these assumptions for you so the files came preinstalled. It is such files that you can safely remove to free up disk space.
The printer drivers can be found in the main library folder under OS X. The manufacturers of the drivers are clearly labelled so you can delete those that you do not need. Monolingual is an app found on Mac that can be used to purge language packs you don't need.
2. Uninstall applications you don't need
Not many people know how to uninstall apps they do not need on OS X. Some people often think that by dragging the application to the trash will do the trick but in reality, they have just deleted the application itself and not the other files associated with it. There are some applications that store their cache in the application support folder in your home directory. You can delete them from there.
3. Run disk inventory
Instead of poking around blindly trying to find out exactly what is taking up space on your disk, you can use the Mac disk inventory to give you a clearer picture. Through this application, you can see how much space your MP3 collection, iPad and iPhone back up, among other files is taking up. This way, you can delete all unnecessary files.
4. Macbook Pro hard drive upgrade
This is a cost effective way of freeing up space on your hard drive and getting your Mac running just like it did when it was brand new. Just like other electronic components and processors, the capacity of hard drives capacity increases every two years.
If you want your Mac to last longer, it is would be a good idea to upgrade hard drive on your macbook pro at least once a year (
http://www.macfixit.com.au/drives-storage.html). Once you purchase the new hard drive, do not throw away the old one because it can still be used as an external hard disk.
In summary getting rid of unnecessary files on your hard drive helps to speed up your Mac as well as ensure that you have sufficient space for storing important projects and applications. Overall, there are many more resources that hog on disk space other than apps.