It takes some time and know-how to do the job right so some research and further instruction outside of this quick guide might be needed.
You'll see the MacOS Utilities window choose "Disk Utility." Now you can choose to erase your startup drive, and choose "Mac OS Extended (Journaled)" as the operating system. How to Clean Up A MacBook Pro Hard Drive the Hard Way If you don’t want to spend the money on a MacBook Pro clean-up software program, it is possible to clean up the hard drive yourself. Next, go through the various methods below to achieve the Mac clean-up task. Hit Clean Up at the bottom of your screen to get rid of those junk files from your machine. You will also see the amount of space that those files currently occupy on your Mac. And it’s even easier if you use CleanMyMac X to help. Click Clean up Mac in the left sidebar, and you will see all junk file types on the right pane.
Fortunately, it’s easy to clean up your Mac, by following the steps above.
Then, wait till Time Machine performs incremental backup of your Mac hard drive or SSD. Your Mac’s hard drive can become cluttered with files once you’ve been using it for a while, and, as well as taking up space, these files can slow down your Mac and cause performance issues. To get around that problem, hold down the Command + R keys when you turn on your Mac and let go when the logo appears. So, before you clean your macOS Catalina or an earlier version, click the Time Machine icon from the menu bar and select Back Up Now to back up your start-up disk.
If you want to format your Mac's system drive, you can't do that when the Mac is running normally because the drive is in use by the operating system. Usually, you'll want ExFAT, which is the default for the MacOS. Usually this is reserved for more advanced users, as a clean install means the hard drive is formatted and completely erased, removing the existing Mac operating system, and erasing all contents, data, files, applications everything from the Mac is completely removed. Select the drive you want to format and then choose “Erase.”Ĥ. At the top of the window, click "Erase."ĥ. In the pop-up window, choose the file system you want to use. Some Mac users like to perform a clean install when a new operating system is released.