Clean Up Downloads Folder Mac

How To Clean Up Downloads Folder
How To Clean Up A Mac
Clean Up Downloads Folder Mac
How To Clear All Downloads On Mac

Summary :

In general, Windows users use Disk Cleanup to free up disk space in daily use. This tool will delete older and unnecessary files so as to release more free space for you. But recently, you should be more carefully when using it on Windows 10 October 2018 Update since it may clear your Downloads folder.

Toll now, the annoying file deletion bug found recently on Windows 10 October 2018 Update has been fixed by Microsoft (at least for the testers currently). Now, there comes another file deletion issue – Disk Cleanup empty Downloads folder (also on the Windows 10 October 2018 Update).

Disk Cleanup Will Empty Your Downloads Folder

Too many temporary and unnecessary files will not only occupy disk space, but also influence the computer responding speed. That’s why people are prone to start Disk Cleanup, the built-in cleaning tool in Windows, to remove those unnecessary files. This even becomes a necessary after you installed the Windows 10 October 2018 Update on computer.

There may be a folder left behind at the main level of your disk, called 'OS X Install Data'. If you have that folder, remove it. I'd suggest then updating your computer to 10.11.6 and install the ensuing security updates to be sure you're getting all the latest bug fixes for El Capitan. Importantly, do not delete or adjust any other files outside of this directory, when finished close the com.apple.applestore folder Relaunch Mac App Store; Now you should be able to download or re-download the apps or Mac OS installer files again, and they should work properly as intended.

Downloads Folder Is Checked by Default

I advise you to back up the Downloads folder before starting Disk Cleanup. Why? That is simply because the Downloads folder has been added as an additional location by Microsoft and it will be checked by default during Disk Cleanup. Files saved here can be removed easily. If you don’t want to lose them, you'd better make a backup in advance.

The routine of using Disk Cleanup:

Start the tool.
Check all the default options of computer.
Click on the OK button to start the cleanup process.

If you use the Disk Cleanup in the same way on a Windows 10 October 2018 Update, you will clean Downloads folder as well. As I said before, the Downloads folder is added as a new option quietly by Microsoft, so it will be checked to clear.

Disk Cleanup in Windows 10 October 2018 Update Is Dangerous

Definitely, this design is convenient for those people who want the folder to be given a totally clean since it is only used for temporary files. However, for other people who want to keep hold of the files saved in the Download folder, it’s dangerous.

For a long time, Windows users have been accustomed to using Disk Cleanup for space release and they won’t change the default check of options before clicking on the “OK” button. The addition of Downloads folders in the Disk Cleanup makes it necessary to make sure that “Downloads” is not checked before the cleanup process begins.

To prevent this design from turning into a nightmare for those people who aren’t expecting it to delete Download folders, you have to examine the listed boxes carefully (figure out which ones are checked to make sure that Downloads isn’t one of them).

Note: The “Downloads” option doesn’t equal to the “Downloaded Program Files” option which you can find easily during the cleanup process in the past. Actually, the “Downloads” refers to the “ActiveX controls and Java applets that are downloaded automatically when you view certain pages” on the Internet.

View & Uncheck Downloads during Disk Cleanup

4 Ways to Open Disk Cleanup

Step one: to uncheck the Downloads folder, you should first open Disk Cleanup by the following ways. (Besides, you can download other disk cleanup tools to delete temporary files and remove history.)

Click on the search box located in the left side of taskbar and input “disk cleanup”; then, click on Disk Cleanup from the search result.
Start the Control Panel and input “disk cleanup” to the search box; then, click on the “Free up disk space by deleting unnecessary files” option.
Open Command Prompt and type “cleanmgr” & press “Enter”.
Open run dialogue by pressing “Windows” + “R”; then, type “cleanmgr” and click on the “OK” button.

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If you need to recover data lost by DiskPart clean, but have no experience, the software recommended in this page will be your great assistant.

Step two: click on the “OK” button in the “Disk Cleanup: Drive Selection” window.

Step three: wait for the calculating process.

Step four: be sure to uncheck “Downloads” in “Disk Cleanup for Fast (C:)” window. And then, click on the “OK” button to confirm and start cleanup.

You can repeat step one to step four to recheck Downloads if you want.

System cleanup in one click

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For many of us, email is a necessary email. Email makes our student and professional lives significantly easier, as a way of sending and sharing information. Not everything can be sent in a text, Facebook or WhatsApp message, or using Snapchat or Slack.

Often, especially for those in creative professional or knowledge economy roles, we rely on email to communicate professionally and send more complex and detailed information.

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Remove every mail attachment stored on your Mac with a powerful macOS cleaner, CleanMyMac X. Give it a go!

Do emails take up storage?

Mail downloads, also known as attachments, are a big feature in busy inboxes, either taking up space in the cloud - if you use a cloud-based email client - on your phone, and if you use a desktop-based email client, on your Mac too. Attachments are everywhere, and you’ve probably got multiple versions of the same attachments in different places, taking up even more space.

Chances are, once you’ve downloaded and worked on an attachment, you won’t need the original. Or when you’ve worked on a document or folder, you’ve got more than one duplicate on your computer, and you can send back a revised attachment to the sender. In practice, this means one attachment often turns into at least three or four versions of the same document stored in different folders and within inboxes and/or cloud-based email services.

How to find Mail Downloads on a Mac

Apart from inside your inbox, mail attachments are found in one of two - or both - places within your Mac. You may also have some on your iPhone or iPad if you have email on another device.

The common way to view, save or delete email attachments in Mail (the built-in Mac OS email client) one by one:

Select a message that includes attachments. Look for the Attachment icon next to the sender's name in the message list.
In the message, do one of the following: Open an attachment in an app: Double-click the attachment.

Within a Mac OS, those who use Mail can find downloads and attachments in the following folder:

Users > YourName > Library > Containers > com.apple.mail > Data > Library > Mail Downloads

All attachments that you've either opened in Mail or viewed in Quick look gets saved there.

To delete Mail downloads saved in this folder just delete the files you don't need and then close the folder.

People who use a cloud-based, or another desktop email client, should see everything you’ve downloaded from your inbox in the Downloads folder. In some cases, you may have a duplicate of the same downloads in both folders, which means these will be taking up even more space. Now that you know where all your mail downloads are hiding, it’s time to stop your Mail app from wasting gigabytes of your Mac space.

Deleting Mail Download files from a Mac

One way to save space and stop mail download overload is to use an email client that makes it easier to find, organize and delete attachments. Take Unibox, for example, which groups emails by sender, making it far more intuitive and easy-to-use compared to Mail or other email services. This app is available from Setapp and described as “A welcome, fresh new approach to email on the Mac” (Macworld).

Within Unibox mail client you can do the following with email attachments:

How To Clean Up Downloads Folder

Preview attachments without launching external apps;
Visually browse your attachments and images;
Quickly find documents and files with an attachment list.

All of these features make it significantly easier to find and delete attachments, no matter which email service you use. This app will work with every popular and self-hosted email provider, with one simple download and setup process.

Before switching email client, however, you might want to get rid of existing gigabytes of useless attachments. Most people would have attachments and duplicates of those files, images, documents and videos dating back to when they first bought their Mac, with some going back to previous Macs if you synced from one device to another when setting-up a new computer. That is potentially a lot of old downloads and duplicates!

How to free up email space on my Mac?

How To Clean Up A Mac

One of the best ways to get rid of Mac Mail downloads is using CleanMyMac X, a popular and easy-to-use app that over 3 million people are using to remove documents, files, images, apps, music and other junk that they don't need anymore.

Also available from Setapp, you can get your Mac tidied up then download a new email client that will keep it more organized.