How to Clean a Hard Drive on a Mac

Before you start cleaning your hard drive, make sure it's properly selected in the Disk Utility program. If the drive is greyed out, click the Mount button at the top of the window to continue. Once you've done that, select the disk from the sidebar and ensure its information is displayed in the main pane.

It's crucial to ensure you have the correct disk selected before making any changes. As you can see from the image below, I have a Western Digital hard drive that's split into two partitions. In this case, I want to remove the second partition titled 'Storage'.

To do this, click the Partition button at the top of the window. If your drive doesn't appear in the sidebar, try disconnecting and reconnecting it to ensure it's properly connected.

Once you've selected the correct disk, locate the partition you want to edit in the left-hand sidebar. The sidebar shows all your connected drives, including their sub-partitions. Take a moment to double-check what you're doing at each stage, and make sure any critical data is backed up before proceeding.

To launch Disk Utility, you can find it in the /Applications/Utilities folder or use Spotlight search. This program comes built-in with macOS and provides a safe way to manage your drives and partitions.

Before we dive into removing partitions, remember that this process often involves deleting data on the drive. If you're planning to remove a partition containing important files, be sure to back up your data first.

In some cases, you may need to use the Security Options button to choose how many times you want Disk Utility to overwrite the erased data. This option is only available for certain types of storage devices.

Next, select the format from the Format pop-up menu and choose a file system format that suits your needs. Then, select the Scheme pop-up menu and choose GUID Partition Map.

Finally, select the storage device you want to erase and click the Erase button. If you're using an Apple silicon or Intel-based Mac with an Apple T2 Security Chip, use Erase Assistant instead.

By following these steps, you can safely remove partitions on your Mac hard drive and free up valuable storage space.

How to clean a hard drive on a mac