How to Find Large Files on Your Mac

Use the large files view in Storage settings

macOS already keeps a list of your largest documents.

1. On macOS 13 Ventura and later, choose Apple menu > System Settings > General > Storage. Click the Info button (i) next to Documents.
2. Choose the view for large files and sort by Size. You can also sort by Kind or by Last Accessed to find big files you have not opened in a while.
3. Select a file and click Show in Finder to see where it is stored, or click Delete to remove it.
4. On macOS 12 Monterey, choose Apple menu > About This Mac > Storage > Manage, then use Reduce Clutter to review large files.

Deleting from this list removes the file from your Mac. Check the location with Show in Finder first, especially for files inside app or project folders.

Search by size in Finder

Finder search can filter on many file attributes, and size is one of them.

1. Open a Finder window and press Command-F to start a search. Choose This Mac or a specific folder as the search scope.
2. Click the Add button (+) below the search field. In the first pop-up menu, choose Other and select the file size attribute.
3. Set it to is greater than, enter a size such as 1 and choose GB.
4. To combine criteria, such as files larger than 1 GB that are also movies, click + again and add another rule.

Click Save to keep the search as a Smart Folder, and select Add To Sidebar so you can open it again later. A Smart Folder updates itself as files change, so it works as a standing list of your largest files.

Sort a folder by size

For a single folder, list view is often enough. Open the folder, choose View > as List and click the Size column header. Folders may show only dashes in the size column; select one and press Command-I (Get Info) to see its total.

This works well for Downloads, Movies and Desktop, which are the most common places for large files to pile up.

Find large files with Terminal

Terminal can list every file above a size in one go. Both commands below only read the disk.

find: walks every folder

find ~ -type f -size +1G 2>/dev/null

• ~ starts in your home folder; replace it with any folder or /Volumes/DiskName.
• -type f lists files only; -size +1G means larger than 1 GB. On macOS, k, M, G and T are accepted as size suffixes, for example +500M.
• 2>/dev/null hides "Permission denied" messages for protected folders.
• Add -x after find to stay on one disk and skip mounted volumes.

To see sizes next to the names, add -exec ls -lh {} + at the end of the command.

mdfind: asks Spotlight

mdfind 'kMDItemFSSize > 1000000000'

mdfind uses the Spotlight index, so it answers almost instantly. The size is in bytes (1000000000 is about 1 GB). Spotlight only knows files it has indexed, so folders excluded in Spotlight settings and some system locations won't appear. Use find when you need a complete answer.

find can also delete files, with -delete. Don't add it to these commands: a typo in the path can remove far more than you intended. Review the list first, then delete files yourself in Finder so they go to the Trash.

Find large files of one type

Often you only care about one kind of file, such as videos or disk images. find can combine a name pattern with a size; this example lists video files larger than 500 MB in Movies and Downloads, and only reads the disk:

find ~/Movies ~/Downloads -type f \( -name '*.mov' -o -name '*.mp4' \) -size +500M 2>/dev/null

Replace the patterns with '*.dmg' -o -name '*.pkg' to find installers, or '*.zip' for archives. In Finder, the same works with a search on Kind (for example Movie) combined with the file size rule.

Decide what to keep, move or delete

A large file is not automatically a file to delete. Ask three questions before you remove one:

• Can I get it again? Installers, downloaded videos and disk images can usually be downloaded again. Your own recordings and exports can't.
• Is it part of something? Files inside a Photos library, a project folder, an app bundle or a virtual machine belong to that app. Remove them from inside the app instead.
• Do I need it on this Mac? Large archives you rarely open can move to an external drive or cloud storage, or be compressed with File > Compress.

When you do delete, use Finder so the file goes to the Trash first, then empty the Trash once you are sure. Remember that the space only comes back after the Trash is emptied.

If many of your large files turn out to be copies of each other, see how to find and remove duplicate files on your Mac.

Questions and answers

What size counts as a large file?

There is no fixed rule. On a 256 GB Mac, anything over 1 GB is worth a look; on a larger disk, start with 5 GB and lower the threshold if the list is short. Ten files of 5 GB free as much as five thousand photos.

Is it safe to delete .dmg and .pkg files?

Usually, once the app is installed: they are installers, not the app itself. Keep the ones for apps you might need to reinstall without a download, such as old versions you can no longer get.

Can I search an external drive?

Yes. In Finder, choose the drive as the search scope. In Terminal, start find at /Volumes/DriveName. Add -x so find stays on that drive.

Why is a large file not in the Storage list?

The Documents views list files in your home folder. Files inside app packages, libraries or system folders belong to other categories. Use find or folder sizes in Finder to locate them.

How do I check one file's size quickly?

Select it in Finder and press Command-I for Get Info, or press the Space bar to preview it with Quick Look. List view also shows the size of every file in a column.

Should I move large files to iCloud instead?

You can: with Store in iCloud turned on in Storage settings, macOS keeps files in iCloud Drive and only downloads them when you open them. It uses your iCloud storage plan, so it moves the problem rather than solving it if that plan is full too.