Find large files on your Mac, and know which are safe to delete

Why a few files take most of the space

On most Macs, a small number of files account for a large share of the disk: a screen recording, the installer of an app you set up months ago, a zip of an old project, a virtual machine, an AI model a tool downloaded once. They are easy to forget because nothing reminds you they are there, and Finder doesn't show them in one place.

Finding them by hand means searching folder by folder and sorting by size. Large Files does that for your whole home folder and Applications in one scan, and lists the results in a single table.

How to find large files on a Mac with Tidy My Mac

Pick a size from Larger than, from 100 MB up to 50 GB (1 GB unless you change it; the app remembers your choice), and press Scan. Files appear as they are found, with their name, size, status and folder, and you can sort by any column.

The scan covers your home folder and /Applications. Apps and Photos libraries are skipped, since they only work whole and have their own tools; virtual machines from Parallels, UTM and VMware are the exception, listed as one item with their full size, because they are often the largest thing on a Mac. Files already in the Trash are left out.

What is safe to delete? Each file is labelled

A list of big files is only useful if you know what they are. Every row has a status and a reason:

Most files are judged by rules about where they are and what they are, which is instant. Files the rules can't place are looked at again from their metadata, such as their owner, age and the project files beside them. With Apple Intelligence on, anything still unrecognised is classified by Apple's on-device model from its path and name. Without it, files are classified by rules only, the toolbar says so, and an unrecognised file is labelled with its kind, such as "Video file", and a reminder to check it first.

Delete with care

Select one file or many, then choose Move to Trash. If everything you selected is labelled Safe to delete, it goes straight to the Trash. If anything isn't, a sheet lists those files with their reasons, and you have to tick I understand and want to move them to the Trash before it goes ahead.

Not sure about a file? Right-click it to Open it, Show in Finder, Quick Look it, or Copy Path. Selecting a row shows its full path and reason below the table.

Large files and the rest of your disk

Large Files shows single files. When the space is spread across thousands of smaller files in one folder, the Disk Map shows it better. Both are filled by the same scan, together with the Junk Cleaner and Duplicates, so pressing Scan in any of them gives you all four. Changing the size threshold rescans Large Files on its own.

What stays on your Mac

The scan reads file names, sizes, paths and dates on your Mac. When Apple Intelligence classifies a file, it runs on your Mac too. No file and no list of files is uploaded; the Privacy Policy lists everything the app sends.

Full Disk Access

Desktop, Documents and Downloads are where many large files live, and macOS protects each with its own permission. Until you grant Full Disk Access, the scan leaves those three folders out instead of raising a prompt for each, and a banner points you to the setting.