How to delete downloads on Mac and keep the folder tidy

Find your Downloads folder

Downloads is a folder in your home folder (~/Downloads). Safari and other browsers save there unless you've changed it, and macOS saves some AirDrop items there too (Apple, Use AirDrop on your Mac). Any of these opens it:

• Press Option-Command-L in Finder (Apple, Mac keyboard shortcuts).
• Choose Go › Downloads in Finder's menu bar.
• Click Downloads in the sidebar of any Finder window.

If a browser saves somewhere else, its settings say where: in Safari, Safari › Settings › General › File download location; in Chrome, Settings › Downloads.

Delete downloads, step by step

1. Open Downloads and choose View › as List.
2. Sort it so the useful candidates are together. Click the Size column header to put the biggest files first, or choose View › Show View Options and set Sort By to Date Added to see the oldest arrivals (Apple, Sort and arrange items in the Finder).
3. Select what you want to remove. Command-click to pick several files, or Shift-click to select a run of them.
4. Press Command-Delete to move them to the Trash. Until you empty it, File › Put Back returns anything you change your mind about.
5. When you're sure, empty the Trash: Control-click the Trash in the Dock and choose Empty Trash. This is the step that frees the space, and it's permanent.

A disk image you've opened appears under Locations in the Finder sidebar. Eject it there before you move the .dmg to the Trash; while it's open, the Trash can't be emptied because the file is in use.

What's safe to delete

Downloads mixes installers, which you rarely need again, with documents that may exist nowhere else. Look at what each file is before it goes.

Interrupted downloads are one thing you don't need to chase: macOS clears them on its own when space runs low, along with other temporary files (Apple, Optimize storage space).

Clearing the download list isn't deleting

Browsers keep a list of what you've downloaded, separate from the files themselves. Clearing that list tidies the browser but leaves every file in Downloads.

• Safari: click the Show Downloads button near the top-right corner of the window, then Clear, or Control-click one item and choose Remove From List. By default Safari removes items from the list after one day; change it in Safari › Settings › General › Remove download list items (Apple, Download items from the web using Safari).
• Chrome: click the More menu (three dots) at the top right and choose Downloads. Google notes that removing an item there takes it off Chrome's Downloads page, not off your computer (Google, Download a file).

So if you cleared Safari's list and your disk is just as full, that's why. Delete the files in Finder instead.

Find large downloads with Storage settings

System Settings › General › Storage has a shortcut: click the ⓘ button next to Documents, then the Downloads view, and sort by size or by when you last opened each file (Apple, Change Storage settings). It's a quick way to spot a big video or archive you'd forgotten about.

For how Downloads compares with the rest of your disk, see how to check storage on a Mac.

Keep the folder tidy

macOS has no setting that clears Downloads on a schedule, and that's probably for the best, given what can end up there. A few habits keep it small instead:

• Delete the installer once the app runs. Drag the app to Applications, open it once, then put the .dmg or .pkg in the Trash.
• Move documents out the day they arrive. Statements, tickets and contracts belong in Documents or wherever you keep files, where your backup expects them.
• Have Safari ask where to save. In Safari › Settings › General, the File download location menu can ask for a location each time, which makes you decide on the spot.
• Let the Trash empty itself. Finder › Settings › Advanced › Remove items from the Trash after 30 days means what you throw away doesn't pile up there instead. More on emptying the Trash.

To see old installers without opening Finder, this Terminal command lists disk images and installer packages at the top level of Downloads that haven't changed in more than 14 days, with their sizes. It only reads; it doesn't move or delete anything:

find ~/Downloads -maxdepth 1 -type f \( -iname "*.dmg" -o -iname "*.pkg" \) -mtime +14 -exec ls -lh {} +

macOS may ask whether Terminal can access your Downloads folder; that's expected. If it lists nothing, there's nothing old of those types there. Delete what it finds in Finder, where the Trash gives you a way back. Old apps themselves are a separate job: how to uninstall apps completely.

How Tend helps

Tend's Clean Up page lists old downloads, the disk images, installers and archives (.dmg, .pkg, .zip, .xip, .iso) in Downloads that are more than two weeks old, with their sizes. Since version 1.3 it selects a disk image or installer for you only when macOS marked it as downloaded from the web; others, such as an encrypted disk image you made, are listed but left unselected, and .zip archives are never selected because they can hold documents. Seeing the list is free. With Tend Pro, what you choose moves to the macOS Trash, and emptying it stays up to you.

Questions

Related guides

More detailed guides:

• Where do screenshots go on a Mac? Find, move and clear them

Sources

• Apple, Mac keyboard shortcuts
• Apple, Use AirDrop on your Mac
• Apple, Sort and arrange items in the Finder on Mac
• Apple, Download items from the web using Safari on Mac
• Apple, Change Storage settings on Mac
• Apple, Optimize storage space on your Mac
• Apple, Delete files and folders on Mac
• Google, Download a file (Chrome Help)

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