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The problem – “I’m out of MacBook storage space” has been solved. No need to lug around an external hard drive or take your MacBook to the Genius bar (where they’ll tell you that an upgrade is not possible).

TarDisk has just (September 2015) released TarDisk Pear -- the first-of-its-kind, HYBRID flash storage module for MacBooks. The release creates a new category of storage products designed to augment a laptop’s existing internal SSD.

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Learn More

When I saw that my library was clogged with duplicates I tried using several applications to clean it up. The most complete application I found was Tidy Up. It provides lots of different types of search options for different tasks, such as cleaning the Photos, Aperture, iTunes and Mail libraries.

So now I will go through a search in Photos and show you a few of the many amazing features that Tidy Up has.

The first thing that I do is select the Photos library as the location in which to scan. As you can see you can select single events or albums to search in.

I use this great feature especially when I get pictures from other people: sometimes they mix up their pictures and when I import them I get copies of the same photos; I just run Tidy Up through the last event and in a few seconds it’s cleaned. You can also select other locations other than the library; you may find this helpful if you want to delete photos in your computer that have already been imported into Photos.

So now I’m ready to select the type of search; usually it’s recommended to use the “Content only” search; Tidy Up will check the content of the pictures and select all the ones that are exactly the same, no matter what their names or other attributes are. The difference between the Duplicate and Similar sections is that in the former Tidy Up will compare the items also by their content. In the Similar section, you may find useful the EXIF tag search especially when you have lots of modified pictures, whose content is different but with the same tags — or the “Date taken” search, which will report all the shots in sequence that were taken in the same second.

You should always check the “Report missing photo” option, which will find all of the images whose original file is missing from the library.

If none of these searches satisfies your needs, you can build your own in the Advanced mode, where you will find lots of other criteria both for pictures and other files.

Once the search is performed, a new window will appear where you’ll be able to manage the duplicate files. Now comes the best part of the application; Tidy Up automatically gathers the duplicates in a smart basket depending upon your needs.

If you don’t care where the photos reside, you can directly trash the contents of the smart basket “All but one item of each duplicate group”. If, on the other hand, you want to use specific filters, you can create your own smart basket from the highlighted button.

For example you can decide to select all the pictures in a specific album or event, or to trash all the newest pictures; just remember to always select an option from the “For Each Duplicate Group” section: this way you’ll be sure that at least one item for each duplicate group will be kept.

If the files that you need to manage are few, you can create a manual basket and drag the items into it.

Now that you have created your basket you have several options to manage the items in it; you can trash the contents of the basket, move or copy the pictures to another folder or hard drive, export the file list or even burn a CD to backup the items and be certain that you don’t lose any important files!

Another useful search is to find all the photos in your computer that have not been imported into the Photos library yet; just select that search from the Miscellaneous collection and in the new window you’ll have all the pictures that are not contained in the Photos library.

Check out Tidy Up

Browsing the internet for new utilities, I found Quick Print. It is an incredibly handy, very straightforward app that allows you to print the selected items in the Finder without having to open them.

It has all the default printing options and a few more added. I find it very useful because it makes the process of printing much faster without any loss of printing options.

It supports most common file types, such as PDFs, images, text files, fonts and also web browser files. A few kinds are not supported yet; however, when a non-supported file is selected, Quick Print shows the Quick Look preview, which is itself printable.

An interesting feature is that Quick Print has the ability to print the content of folders as a list: it is very useful if you use folders as archives.

In addition, this app is able to print the files recently opened by applications: you just need to select an application and, in the Quick Print window, click on the "Recents" button; this will show all the files recently opened by the selected application, easily printable with only one click.

With Quick Print, you can print any element you copied to the clipboard just by selecting the menu item "Print Clipboard".

I believe that Quick Print is a must-have application; for just a few dollars you can get a utility that simplifies your life!

Try Quick Print for free Check out the video review

The startup disk is the hard drive where the operating system, your applications and home folders are installed on. For most users, it’s the Macintosh HD. The system notifies the user when the hard drive is almost full with this message.

Don't ignore it because, if your startup disk is full, you may experience issues with software applications running incorrectly or crashing and a remarkable slowing down of the system.

There are several steps you can take to make sure you free up enough space. Generally, to keep your Mac performance high, it's recommended to maintain at least 15% of your hard disk free.

The first thing you should do, is to empty the Trash; users who rarely empty their trash can have GB of useless clutter taking up their disk space. Make sure the items contained are not needed and then proceed.

Another thing you can do is to clean up the download folder and the desktop. There might be old files that you don't need anymore. The same thing should be done with the movie folder: lots of apps write to this folder and there could be numerous files that you simply don’t need.

Even after you take these steps, it probably won't be enough. The most space is usually taken by the thousands of useless duplicates in your computer, which have to be eliminated. The application I use for this purpose is Tidy Up. It's the most complete and featured duplicate file finder and it's also easy to use. You can check out its characteristics clicking here.

After you delete all the duplicates, you may want to gain additional space. Tidy Up offers a range of different searches that help you quickly find the useless items, such as old cache files, old log files, old preference files, empty files and folders, and many others in the Advanced Mode. These files may not occupy a large space, but they still contribute to the slowing down of the computer.

If you want to free up additional space you can search for the large items, and delete or move them to an external hard drive. For this task, I still use Tidy Up. In the Advanced Mode it is possible to search for files of a specific kind that are greater than the chosen size. This way, you can analyze all the large files in your computer and decide what you wanna do with them. Tidy Up even allows you to burn a CD with those items: doing so, will allow you to store files that you seldom use without the need of buying a new hard disk.

Check out Tidy Up

The more you use your computer, the more files get stored in your hard drive. Every time you perform an action, such as downloading, moving, copying, modyfing, you create new files that, after a while, can fill up your hard disk.

Often people don't realize that there's no need of buying a new external disk. They can free up space and improve their iMac performance simply by deleting the thousands of duplicates in their computer. Indeed, even when you think you're paying attention not to create any duplicate, there are some actions that you can't avoid.

Obviously, you can't even take into consideration going through your entire hard disk to find the duplicate elements because it would take centuries. There are several softwares that claim to do this work for you, but in fact there's only a few that actually work.

The software I suggest using is called Tidy Up. Tidy Up is extremely effective and is definitely the most featured duplicate file software you can find:

• Very user-friendly and easy to use
• Extremely fast research
• Can search for every kind of file
• Can search for folders by content
• Can search through the entire hard disk or only specific folders
• Can also search in external networks
• Can search and synchronize the deletions in Mail, Photos, iTunes and Aperture's libraries
• Customizable search criteria
• Can search by content, name, date created/modified, size and lots more
• Can search based on label visibility, empty folders, unused preferences, old cache and many more
• Runs on every OSX system: from Panther and later
• Can save the search result for a later use
• Can trash, move, copy, export the list, burn a CD/DVD, substitute with aliases the found items
• Is provided with a safe deletion system that allows to restore the deleted items even after the restart of the computer
• Many more

Whether you want to solve your synchronization issues, utilize fast indexing, back up your drive data, or simply manage the files, such an application is worth a trial.

You can see for yourself for free how many duplicates are clogging your Mac!

Download Tidy Up

After using your Mac for a while, you may notice its performance isn't as good as it used to be when it was new. This is a normal process and it is due to the usage of the computer. The more you use it, the more files you create and these can eventually slow down your computer and worsen its performance.

The main issue is that lots of the files in your hard drive are in fact files you don't need, such as unused applications, old cache, unused preference and, most of all, duplicate files. What can you do to clean up your Mac and speed it up?

You have to get rid of the unwanted files. You might think that it would be a timing process and you would need several softwares. Well, you are wrong! I had the same problem: my MacBook was running pretty slow and it always had its memory filled just after a couple years I had bought it. I wanted some piece of software that would do all the work I needed, without having to spend too much on multiple softwares.

I was completely satisfied when I found out Tidy Up. This software is unbelievably featured and can really perform any kind of search you want, even the more specific ones! I was able to go through all my computer and clean it up from all the useless files I had.

In just one hour, my Mac was completely cleaned up and its great performance was restored. If you want the thing done, Tidy Up is a must!

Try Tidy Up for free

When dealing with a library of thousands of songs, it is normal to create several duplicates, especially because, every time you import songs, you don't want to go through your library to check if you already have them. I am the same way and I never really worry about it. That's because I have a software that can easily and quickly find and erase those duplicates.

The software is Tidy Up. Not only is it very fast, but it is also equipped with lots of different features. It can search for dead tracks and delete them. It has the ability to search only in the desired playlists, or in the entire library and, once the searched is performed, you have several options to delete the dupes. Tidy Up allows you to keep all the songs contained in a specific playlist or all the higher quality ones.

A great feature is that it synchronizes the deletions with iTunes, avoiding the creation of dead tracks.

So, if you're tired of seeing duplicates in your library...

Try Tidy Up for free

Since pictures in Photos can be modified once imported, it is really common to have lots of duplicates in the library. Every time a photo is modified, Photos creates a duplicate to keep the original untouched; this way you'll have the original and the modified photo and usually you want to keep just the modified one. It also happens that you import the same pictures multiple times, especially when you are used to import them form different locations every time.

After some time your Photos library gets filled of duplicates, causing it to slow down and wasting space on your hard disk. To solve this problem, due to the fact that Photos isn't provided with a duplicate remover, you need to use a software that helps you find and delete the duplicates. The one I've used for years is Tidy Up. It is now at its third version and in the years it has improved a lot. I've recommended it to some friends of mine who had the same problem; now they're all really satisfied with it and they're also using it to remove duplicate songs in iTunes.

Deleting duplicates with Tidy Up is easy and extremely fast. It is provided with more than 50 types searches, divided in 10 collections. If you like to customize your search, you can switch to the advanced mode and select as many criteria as you want. One thing I love about this software, which the majority of the other duplicate finder software don't have, is that Tidy Up allows you to choose the items to delete, through a helpful automatic system.

Check out Tidy Up for free

A common issue that can affect your MacBook is that after a few months of usage, it can become considerably slower. One option to solve this problem would be to upgrade your RAM. However, they're expensive and you actually might solve the problem without having to buy one.

- Don't keep open too many applications. Turn off the ones you don't use; even though it may seem useless, turning off applications like iTunes or iPhoto would speed up your computer. That's because they're both applications that use a lot of memory.

- Keep your MacBook cool. An overheated computer performs in a strange way and isn't as fast as it should be. Try to avoid using your laptop on a surface that doesn't let the fans blow air out, such as a couch or a bed. A laptop should be used on a flat surface, like a table, to have its performance at the top.

- Restart your computer regularly. When your memory is full and your computer slows down markedly, the best thing to do is to restart it. This way, the memory will be cleaned up and the computer will run faster.

- Turn off the unused applications. Many applications open at the login in automatically; if you don't use them disable the option from the System Preferences; this will save up a lot of memory.

- Disable Widgets. If you don't use them, don't even boot them up. They use a lot of the system resources.

- Remove the duplicates files. Duplicate files waste space on your hard disk and slow down its performance. They can clog your system easily, especially if you move or have moved files from other devices. There are specific applications that can do the job for you. I use Tidy Up.

Find out more

When you look for something using Spotlight, the more files you have on your hard disk, the more time it will take. Since Spotlight looks also inside the email messages, having a lot of messages will slow down the search. In addition, you will have a wider result to go through to find what you are looking for. This can become annoying, especially when many files you're checking are just duplicates.

One thing you can do to stop this process, is to eliminate all the duplicate emails in your mailbox. However, to do so, you definitely need a software that does the work for you. The software I recommend is Tidy Up; it is very fast and easy to use. You can find and delete all the duplicate emails in just a few clicks, thanks to its pre-defined email search.

See the tutorial Check out Tidy Up

Everybody who owns a Mac, most certainly uses iPhoto, importing the pictures from their iPhone or digital camera. One of the main factors that can cause iPhoto to run slowly is the fact that you simply have too many photos. Having a library of 10,000 pictures is not rare for an amateur photographer, and professionals can have more than 100,000. This can become an issue because the more pictures you have, the slower iPhoto will run. However, there isn't much you can do to solve this problem.

One thing that most people don't know, is that their library is most likely filled with duplicates. When you manage your photos, for example editing, moving them from one event to another, adding a keyword, it's iPhoto itself that creates duplicates of the modified pictures. Sometimes it happens that one imports pictures from a digital camera and forgets to delete them; the next time the same pictures will be added again, and it's not easy to recognize them, especially when you deal with a great number of photos. For others who frequently update their systems, you are probably restoring backups often, and that's another way to create duplicates.

iPhoto isn't provided with a duplicate remover system, and, to avoid having to deal with thousands of pictures one by one, I recommend using a software that will do all the work for you. I had been trying some of them, until I found Tidy Up; in a little time I managed to clean my 15-thousand-photo library and I had way more duplicates than I expected! It is really fast because you don't have to go through all the found pictures to decide which ones to keep and which ones to trash; it is provided with a "basket" system, which allows you to quickly individuate the photos to eliminate. Tidy Up is also able to find those photos scattered through your computer, so that you can easily add them to the iPhoto library, without creating more duplicates. In addition, you can decide to limit your search to a few albums and events or just exclude some of them.

So, if you have problems with iPhoto running slow or you have a library with thousands of pictures, try the free trial now and see for yourself!

Download Tidy Up now

iTunes is probably the most used application by Apple. Users always add new media files from different locations and transfer them to their iPod, iPad and iPhone; Moving the files back and forth ends up clogging up your hard disk with a huge amount of duplicates. Many people have libraries of thousands of songs and not always the tags are well-defined. As a consequence, iTunes and your Mac itself can start running slow due to all the space taken up by the duplicates.

These duplicates definitely cannot be searched manually; the process would take up too much time, even with a library of only a thousand songs. Even with iTunes' duplicate finding system, the work is still long and boring, since you have to go through each group of duplicate and manually select the items to delete. The only thing you can do is using a software that does the work for you. There are many softwares that claim to do that but, most of the times they don't allow you to customize the search and you don't even know which criteria are using to search.

The software I use is Tidy Up. It's a very effective software usable by all kinds of users, from the beginners to the experts. You can use one of its ready searches or, if you like to customize your search, you can use the advanced mode and choose the criteria for yourself. Tidy Up is also provided with a Strategy Wizard, which, in the Advanced Mode, guides your through a series of questions necessary to build your search; this way it gathers all the items to delete in a virtual basket. It is also able to restore the trashed songs back to their place if you realize you deleted the wrong ones, even after the restart of the computer.

Speed up iTunes and clean your library now! Download the free trial.

Check out Tidy Up!

One of the most annoying problems your Mac can have, is when your Mail mailbox is filled with duplicate email messages. It would take days to go through your mailbox and delete the duplicate messages over and over. There are AppleScripts you can find, but they are slow and not as user-friendly as the software I use.

Tidy Up is provided with a search made on purpose for this task. In a matter of seconds you can find all the duplicate emails and delete them safely. The deletions will be synchronized with Mail and your problem with duplicates will be over!

See the tutorial Try Tidy Up for free

When your Mac starts running slow or your hard disk is filling up, there are probably several files you don't need that are creating problems in your computer. These files can be unused preferences as well as old cache, empty files or empty folders.

It would be impossible to go through your hard disk to find all these files. You can use a software like Tidy Up, which is provided with ready searches to do this work. You just need to select the search and in a few seconds you'll have the result.

Your Mac will be cleaned up with a few clicks!

Take a look at Tidy Up

Sometimes, navigating through the finder, you find photos that haven't been added to your library. It would be a pain in the neck to have to search for them and check if they're already in the library.

Save yourself time and use Tidy Up. It has a search made on purpose to find photos scattered in your computer that haven't been added to the Photos library yet. With just a few clicks you can move the photos to a new folder and later import them into Photos.

See the tutorial Find out more about Tidy Up!

It happens often that you find songs in your Mac, and they haven't been imported in the iTunes library yet. This is most common when data is moved from another device into your computer, or even from an old computer to a new one. However, finding all those songs would take up too much time.

Yes, Tidy Up is also provided with a search made on purpose for this task. You only need a few clicks to move the found songs to a new folder and later import them into iTunes!

Check out the tutorial Download free trial