How to find large files on your Mac

Your Mac is running low on storage but you can't see what's using it. Much of the space is hidden in ~/Library folders that Finder doesn't show by default.

Find large files with Finder

Finder has a built-in way to sort files by size, though it only works in List view and won't show hidden Library folders.

Open Finder and navigate to the folder you want to inspect (e.g., /Applications or your home folder).
Switch to List view by pressing ⌘2 or clicking the list icon in the toolbar.
Click the Size column header to sort files from largest to smallest. Click again to reverse the order.
Search by kind — use Finder's search bar and filter by "Kind" to narrow results to specific file types like disk images, movies, or archives.

Limitation: Finder won't calculate folder sizes by default. To see folder sizes in List view, open View > Show View Options and check "Calculate all sizes." This can be slow on large directories.

Use Storage Management

macOS includes a built-in storage analysis tool that groups files by category and highlights the biggest offenders.

Open System Settings from the Apple menu.
Navigate to General → Storage to see a color-coded breakdown of your disk usage.
Review each category — Applications, Documents, Mail, Music, Photos, and more. Each shows its total size.
Use Reduce Clutter — this feature lists large files you can review and delete, sorted by size with last-accessed dates.

What each category means: "Documents" includes anything that doesn't fit another category. "Other" (or "System Data" on newer macOS) includes caches, logs, and app support files — often the largest and most confusing category.

Find large folders with Terminal

Terminal gives you the most precise control. Two commands cover most use cases:

Find the largest Library folders:

du -sh ~/Library/*/ | sort -rh | head -20

This lists the 20 largest subdirectories in ~/Library, sorted by size.

Find individual files over 500 MB:

find ~ -type f -size +500M 2>/dev/null

This searches your entire home directory for files larger than 500 MB. The 2>/dev/null suppresses permission errors from protected directories.

Hidden space hogs in ~/Library

These directories are some of the worst offenders. They're hidden by default, so most people never realize how much space they consume.

Directory	What's stored	Typical size
~/Library/Developer/Xcode/DerivedData/	Xcode build caches	5–30 GB
~/Library/Containers/com.docker.docker/	Docker VM and images	5–20 GB
~/Library/Caches/com.spotify.client/	Spotify offline music	1–10 GB
~/Library/Application Support/Steam/	Steam games and workshop content	1–100+ GB
~/Library/Application Support/MobileSync/Backup/	iOS device backups	5–50 GB
~/Library/Caches/Google/Chrome/	Chrome browser cache	500 MB–5 GB

Tip: You can safely delete DerivedData and browser caches — they'll be rebuilt automatically. Be more careful with iOS backups and Docker images, as those may contain irreplaceable data.

Find app leftovers with Zapper

Zapper scans all 11 Library directories in parallel and shows you the size of every file associated with an app. It's the fastest way to find out which apps are consuming the most hidden storage.

Drop any .app onto Zapper's window (or click Browse).
Review the list of found files — Zapper shows file sizes and paths.
Zap — selected files move to Trash (reversible with ⌘Z).

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