SpareDisk

How to find large files on a Mac

A handful of large files often take more space than everything else in a folder together. Here are four ways to find them, from the tools built into macOS to a visual disk space analyzer, and a list of what they usually turn out to be.

By Manish Bhattacharya, maker of SpareDisk · Updated

1. Storage settings

Open System Settings › General › Storage and click the ⓘ next to Documents. The Large Files tab lists files over a certain size, and the Downloads and Unsupported Apps tabs are worth checking too. It is quick, but it only covers some folders and doesn’t show which folders are large.

2. Finder search by file size

  1. In Finder, press ⌘F and choose This Mac.
  2. Click the first criterion (usually Kind) and choose Other…, then tick File Size.
  3. Set it to is greater than 1 GB, or 500 MB for a wider net.
  4. Click the Size column to sort. You can save the search as a Smart Folder with Save.

Finder search relies on Spotlight, so it can miss files in your Library, in folders Spotlight skips, and inside packages such as app bundles.

3. Terminal

To list files over 1 GB in your home folder:

find ~ -type f -size +1G -exec ls -lh {} + 2>/dev/null | sort -k5 -h

To see which folders in your home folder are largest:

du -sh ~/* ~/Library/* 2>/dev/null | sort -h | tail -20

Terminal is thorough but slow on big folders, and it reports numbers without much context.

4. A disk space analyzer

A disk space analyzer scans a folder once and draws it as a treemap, so large files and folders show up as large blocks. SpareDisk scans the folders you add, about 1.4 million files in 25 seconds on an Apple silicon MacBook. Its Large Files view lists the 200 largest files in each location, with presets from 100 MB to 5 GB.

It also shows two sizes for every file. A file’s logical size is what it would hold if fully downloaded. Its size on disk is what it actually occupies. A 68 GB disk image can take 2 GB on disk, and a cloud file that isn’t downloaded takes almost nothing, so check the second number before deciding what is worth deleting.

The large files you’re most likely to find

  • Virtual machine and container disks: Docker.raw, Parallels, UTM and VMware images.
  • Installers and disk images: .dmg, .pkg, .xip and .iso files in Downloads.
  • Video: screen recordings, Zoom and Teams recordings, iMovie and Final Cut libraries.
  • Old iPhone and iPad backups, which you can manage in Finder with your device selected.
  • Message attachments in ~/Library/Messages/Attachments. Delete them in Messages rather than in Finder.
  • Archives: old .zip backups of projects and photo exports.
  • Developer data: see Xcode and developer caches.

Questions

How do I find the biggest files on my Mac?
Use System Settings › General › Storage › Documents › Large Files for a quick list, a Finder search with File Size greater than 1 GB, or a disk space analyzer such as SpareDisk, which shows every file and folder by size in a treemap.
Why does Finder show a different size than a disk space analyzer?
Finder’s Get Info shows logical size first. Sparse files, APFS clones and cloud files that aren’t downloaded use less space on disk than their logical size. SpareDisk shows both numbers.
Can I find large files in hidden folders like Library?
Finder search often skips them. Terminal’s du and find commands, or a disk space analyzer that scans your home folder, include the Library.