Why Games Take More Space On Mac

Why Games Take More Space On Mac 4,7/5 8733 votes

These are the Steam games with the biggest install size. Ark: Survival Evolved - 70 GB’s 6. Grand Theft Auto V - 70 GB’s (This is without any mods) 5. Middle Earth: Shadow of War - 95 GB’s if you also install the high-res texture pack 4.

  • Discover how to free up hard drive space on a Mac or MacBook. These tips and tricks will help you get more free storage in macOS so you don't need to buy an external hard drive or delete files.
  • Feb 01, 2020 Most of the best games are available on Mac. Indeed, Mac gaming has come a long way Nowadays, 5 out of the 10 most-played games on Steam support MacOS and all the top indies support it too. This Best Mac games list is nothing but a sample of all the possibilities Mac gaming has to offer.

If so, you may be wasting a lot of hard drive space. Steam makes it easy to download and play great Mac games. Steam hides your downloaded games, though, which makes it easy to waste dozens or hundreds of GB of hard drive space. Here's how to reclaim it.

J.R. writes:

I just ran DaisyDisk on my Mac and discovered that I have more than 100 GB of files dedicated to Steam. I don't play most of those games. Can I just delete them?

Valve's popular Steam is a great way to download and play Mac games. The service makes it simple to pay for games, and services like Steam Play make it possible for you to pick up and start playing a saved game even months or years later. Updates are regularly pushed out, and Steam also offers game ladders and chat services so you can socialize yourself with other gamers.

When you first download Steam games, you're asked if you want to create a shortcut for them. Those shortcuts look like apps, but Steam typically installs apps somewhere else: In a folder called Steam inside the Application Support folder in your Library folder. That's made it really simple for Steam to squirrel away dozens, in some cases hundreds of GB of files on your hard drive without making it readily apparent.

Apps like DaisyDisk make it really easy to figure out what's using up space on your hard drive; it took me just two or three clicks with DaisyDisk to figure out that Steam was eating almost 30 GB of space. There's no similar feature in the Steam app to ascertain how much space in total is being used. You can certainly use DaisyDisk's 'collection' feature to grab unused games and delete them.

But I'd recommend restricting yourself to deleting unused Steam games from within the Steam client itself, however, just to make sure everything is removed properly.

How to delete Steam games you've already downloaded

  1. Open the Steam application by holding down the command button and pressing the spacebar, then typing Steam.
  2. Click on Steam's Library tab to examine the games you already own. All the games that are currently installed will appear in white bold text in the library's left sidebar window.
  3. To delete a game's local content, hold down the control key. Click on the name of the game you'd like to delete, then select Delete Local Content..
  4. You'll get a message telling you that all content related to that game will be deleted. It's safe to click the Delete button.
  5. If you want to see how much space an app is using first, hold down the control button, click on the app name, select Properties, click on the Local Files tab. Disk usage will be listed near the top.

That's it! With this tip you can safely delete all the game files you're not actively playing. And thanks to Steam Play, all of your saved games remain in the cloud attached to your user ID, so the next time you download the game and install it, you can pick up right where you left off. Eb games mic mac mall 1.

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Optimized Storage in macOS Sierra and later* can save space by storing your content in iCloud and making it available on demand. When storage space is needed, files, photos, movies, email attachments, and other files that you seldom use are stored in iCloud automatically. Each file stays right where you last saved it, and downloads when you open it. Files that you’ve used recently remain on your Mac, along with optimized versions of your photos.

* If you haven't yet upgraded to macOS Sierra or later, learn about other ways to free up storage space.

Find out how much storage is available on your Mac

Choose Apple menu  > About This Mac, then click Storage. This is an overview of available storage space on your Mac, as well as the space used by different categories of files:

Click the Manage button to open the Storage Management window, pictured below. (The Manage button is available only in macOS Sierra or later.)

Games

Manage storage on your Mac

The Storage Management window offers recommendations for optimizing your storage. If some recommendations are already turned on, you will see fewer recommendations.


Store in iCloud

Click the Store in iCloud button, then choose from these options:

  • Desktop and Documents. Store all files from these two locations in iCloud Drive. When storage space is needed, only the files you recently opened are kept on your Mac, so that you can easily work offline. Files stored only in iCloud show a download icon , which you can double-click to download the original file. Learn more about this feature.
  • Photos. Store all original, full-resolution photos and videos in iCloud Photos. When storage space is needed, only space-saving (optimized) versions of photos are kept on your Mac. To download the original photo or video, just open it.
  • Messages. Store all messages and attachments in iCloud. When storage space is needed, only the messages and attachments you recently opened are kept on your Mac. Learn more about Messages in iCloud.

Storing files in iCloud uses the storage space in your iCloud storage plan. If you reach or exceed your iCloud storage limit, you can either buy more iCloud storage or make more iCloud storage available. iCloud storage starts at 50GB for $0.99 (USD) a month, and you can purchase additional storage directly from your Apple device. Learn more about prices in your region.

Games like dauntless for mac free. R/dauntless Dauntless is a free-to-play co-op action RPG developed by Phoenix Labs available for Playstation 4, Xbox One, Nintendo Switch, and PC via the Epic Games store. Battle ferocious Behemoths, craft powerful weapons, and forge your legend in the Shattered Isles. Dauntless is a free-to-play co-op action RPG available for Nintendo Switch, PlayStation 4, Xbox One, and PC on the Epic Games store.

Optimize Storage

Click the Optimize button, then choose from these options.

  • Automatically remove watched movies and TV shows. When storage space is needed, movies or TV shows that you purchased from the iTunes Store and already watched are removed from your Mac. Click the download icon next to a movie or TV show to download it again.
  • Download only recent attachments. Mail automatically downloads only the attachments that you recently received. You can manually download any attachments at any time by opening the email or attachment, or saving the attachment to your Mac.
  • Don't automatically download attachments. Mail downloads an attachment only when you open the email or attachment, or save the attachment to your Mac.

Optimizing storage for movies, TV shows, and email attachments doesn't require iCloud storage space.

Empty Trash Automatically

Empty Trash Automatically permanently deletes files that have been in the Trash for more than 30 days.

Reduce Clutter

Reduce Clutter helps you to identify large files and files you might no longer need. Click the Review Files button, then choose any of the file categories in the sidebar, such as Applications, Documents, Music Creation, or Trash.

You can delete the files in some categories directly from this window. Other categories show the total storage space used by the files in each app. You can then open the app and decide whether to delete files from within it.

Learn how to redownload apps, music, movies, TV shows, and books.

Where to find the settings for each feature

The button for each recommendation in the Storage Management window affects one or more settings in other apps. You can also control those settings directly within each app.

  • If you're using macOS Catalina, choose Apple menu  > System Preferences, click Apple ID, then select iCloud in the sidebar: Store in iCloud turns on the Optimize Mac Storage setting on the right. Then click Options next to iCloud Drive: Store in iCloud turns on the Desktop & Documents Folders setting. To turn off iCloud Drive entirely, deselect iCloud Drive.
    In macOS Mojave or earlier, choose Apple menu > System Preferences, click iCloud, then click Options next to iCloud Drive. Store in iCloud turns on the Desktop & Documents Folders and Optimize Mac Storage settings.
  • In Photos, choose Photos > Preferences, then click iCloud. Store in iCloud selects iCloud Photos and Optimize Mac Storage.
  • In Messages, choose Messages > Preferences, then click iMessage. Store in iCloud selects Enable Messages in iCloud.
  • If you're using macOS Catalina, open the Apple TV app, choose TV > Preferences from the menu bar, then click Files. Optimize Storage selects “Automatically delete watched movies and TV shows.”
    In macOS Mojave or earlier, open iTunes, choose iTunes > Preferences from the menu bar, then click Advanced. Optimize Storage selects “Automatically delete watched movies and TV shows.”
  • In Mail, choose Mail > Preferences from the menu bar, then click Accounts. In the Account Information section on the right, Optimize Storage sets the Download Attachments menu to either Recent or None.
Why Games Take More Space On Mac

Empty Trash Automatically: From the Finder, choose Finder > Preferences, then click Advanced. Empty Trash Automatically selects “Remove items from the Trash after 30 days.”

Other ways that macOS helps automatically save space

With macOS Sierra or later, your Mac automatically takes these additional steps to save storage space:

  • Detects duplicate downloads in Safari, keeping only the most recent version of the download
  • Reminds you to delete used app installers
  • Removes old fonts, languages, and dictionaries that aren't being used
  • Clears caches, logs, and other unnecessary data when storage space is needed

How to free up storage space manually

Even without using the Optimized Storage features of Sierra or later, you can take other steps to make more storage space available:

Why Games Take More Space On Mac Pro

  • Music, movies, and other media can use a lot of storage space. Learn how to delete music, movies, and TV shows from your device.
  • Delete other files that you no longer need by moving them to the Trash, then emptying the Trash. The Downloads folder is good place to look for files that you might no longer need.
  • Move files to an external storage device.
  • Compress files.
  • Delete unneeded email: In the Mail app, choose Mailbox > Erase Junk Mail. If you no longer need the email in your Trash mailbox, choose Mailbox > Erase Deleted Items.

Why Games Take More Space On Mac Pc

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Why Games Take More Space On Mac Free

  • When you duplicate a file on an APFS-formatted volume, that file doesn't use additional storage space on the volume. Deleting a duplicate file frees up only the space required by any data you might have added to the duplicate. If you no longer need any copies of the file, you can recover all of the storage space by deleting both the duplicate and the original file.
  • If you're using a pro app and Optimize Mac Storage, learn how to make sure that your projects are always on your Mac and able to access their files.