In addition to the already supported Dropbox™ and Google Drive™, the new DaisyDisk 4.21 allows you to connect, scan and manage disk space in your Microsoft OneDrive™ cloud account.
This is a free update for the existing users of DaisyDisk 4.x.
In DaisyDisk 4.11 we have added support for macOS Big Sur and also further improved discovery of the hidden space by including more hidden volumes into the scan report.
This is a free update for the existing users of DaisyDisk 4.x.
Ever since macOS Catalina was introduced, many Mac users noticed that their disks eventually get full without obvious reason. A quick scan in DaisyDisk typically reveals a big chunk of “hidden space”, which means the system is using more disk space than it’s possible to reveal by scanning, even with elevated permissions (scanning “as Administrator”).
The reason for this problem is that macOS is making temporary backups of the system, so called local snapshots, temporarily locking big amounts of disk space in an area of the disk that is fully opaque to the users. Eventually when the snapshots get transferred to the permanent storage, such as the Time Capsule, or as the snapshots become too old and get replaced by newer ones, macOS releases the disk space. However, the backup process is continuous and therefore there is always a certain amount of disk space that is locked by macOS for the snapshots.
This is how macOS Catalina works and it’s not supposed to even be a problem or require any maintenance from the user. However, in certain cases, you just need to free up the space urgently, and it’s quite confusing that you don’t have control over a big chunk of your disk.
Thankfully, the new version of DaisyDisk (4.10) is making it much easier to reveal the macOS’ hidden space, and for the part that cannot be revealed - understand its internal structure and even provide tools to reclaim it by demand.
In particular, the new DaisyDisk cuts down the amount of hidden space by revealing some obscure system items such as non-linked content of the “firmlinked” Data volume (under /System/Volumes/Data), the virtual memory volume (under /private/var/VM) and some other.
Besides, DaisyDisk now shows a breakdown of the hidden space that includes the following items:
Purgeable space. (You can also see it in Finder and Disk Utility when you inquire info for a disk). This is an amount of disk space, as calculated by macOS itself, which includes the snapshots too. You can forcedly purge this space by deleting it in DaisyDisk.
[NEW] Snapshots. This is a list of the temporary snapshots, with their estimated sizes. You can forcedly delete any or all of them in DaisyDisk, with a simple drag-and-drop, as you’d do with regular files.
Other volumes. This is the remainder of the system volumes that are used internally by macOS.
All in all, the new DaisyDisk is making a huge step to return you understanding and control of your disk on macOS Catalina, and probably provides the most exhaustive and informative view of your disk compared to any other disk utility.
This is a free update for the existing users of DaisyDisk 4.x.
People often ask us whether there is a DaisyDisk app for iOS.
Unfortunately, the answer is No.
It’s technically impossible to build an app like DaisyDisk for iOS, because all apps on iPhone are sandboxed. This means — they can only scan their own folder, and the rest of the iPhone storage is inaccessible to them.
Nevertheless, there are still some tips & tricks that will help you free up your iPhone’s storage. Read on!
1. Find out what’s eating your iPhone’s memory
It’s hard to keep track of everything that takes up your iPhone’s space. Countless old photos & videos, music you don’t listen to anymore, cache from social networks… what else?
All these files waste your memory storage. When the storage runs low, your iPhone has to work harder than usual. Therefore, the overall performance is slowed down and your battery drains faster. So how can you clear up your storage and, at the same time, help your iPhone’s battery live longer?
The first step — find out what’s eating your iPhone’s space. In your iPhone Settings > General > Storage, you can see how much of your memory is filled by apps, media etc. This will help you decide what files are useless. You can also look up the same info in your iTunes settings.
2. Get rid of the unneeded files
There are surely unnecessary apps, old photos & videos (if they’re already uploaded onto iCloud) or other data on your iPhone. Still have Temple Run, seriously? You haven’t been playing it for ages!
Spend some time to look through all the photos and videos on your iPhone. Undoubtedly, there are some blurry and bad photos, “damn, it’s a video!” records and so on. Why should they waste your iPhone space?
Three months ago you downloaded and watched a 3-hour-long movie? I think, it’s definitely time to remove it!
a small life hack: If you take HDR photos, why save the original ones, which are worse? You can remove this option by unselecting “Keep Normal Photo” in Photos & Camera Settings.
3. Resurrect the Legacy
Many people hold massive music collections on an iPhone. But the truth is — devices like iPods are better equipped for music listening.
Remember how much space can an iPod have? They’re able to keep hundreds of GBs of music. What’s more, some models support even movies and photos.
By the way, to put music on iPod, you can use WALTR, a handy app created by our friends at Softorino. (The company specializes in iOS-to-Mac technologies and own a bunch of cool apps in this area.) All you need to do is to launch WALTR and just drag and drop your music files to your iPod. Ta-dah.
Your little gadget will come back to life and you’ll have a lot of free iPhone memory!
4. Filter messages, notes & cache
You can clear old notes & contacts as they also take your phone memory.
In your Settings, look for Keep Messages option. There, you’ll be able to delete all the messages that include media. You can remove all messages that you’ve received last year or during the previous month. Or forever. 👾
Speaking about messages… don’t forget about your mail! You can, for example, clear Spam folder, unsubscribe from irrelevant websites etc. you can also clear Sent or Inbox messages if you’re sure there’s nothing important.
If you’re an avid user of various messengers like Viber, WhatsApp or Telegram, clear your cached chats and media that are no longer useful. You may not notice this, but it takes substantial part of your iPhone storage.
5. Use iCloud!
You’re always free to move all the stuff you might need to your iCloud storage. You’ve run out of memory even there? Either delete something or simply buy more space.
See?
There’s no difficulty in clearing your iPhone storage! It may be time-consuming, but it’s worth doing once in a blue moon. :)