Just make sure you empty your trash when youre through with everything to really get the space back.

While youre emptying your closets, decluttering, and getting rid of the bloat in your life, why not do the same for your Mac Here are some simple, easy to follow tips to give your trusted Mac a little spring cleaning of its own.

Advertisement Clean It Out Lets start with the outside of your system.

Turn it off, unplug everything, and move it out from where you normally have it set up.

Give the area around your Mac, whether its an iMac on your desk, or a Mac Pro under your desk, a good cleaningtheres probably dust and grime built up around it.

Apple suggests a damp, lint-free cloth to do the job, but even a dry microfiber cloth will get he job doneespecially on displays and screens where you absolutely dont want to use harsh chemicals of any kind.

Advertisement Even though its not officially recommended by Apple, a little compressed air will go a long way towards getting the dust out of the cracks, crevices, and exhaust vents.

If you have a Mac Pro, you can crack the case open and attack the inside with the same cloth and compressed air.

If your case or keyboard are seriously gunky, we highly recommend attacking the filth with a Mr.

Cleaner Lifehack Zip Ties To

Now is a good time to learn how to wrap those cables so they dont take up so much space, or order some velcro cable ties, twist ties, or zip ties to help you keep everything coming out of the back of your computer neat and tidy, and maybe even label them with milk jug labels or bread tags.

If its really bad, you can always repurpose a rain gutter, use a flower pot, or find another container to keep the cables and their slack out of sight.

Cleaner Lifehack Free With This

Shorten Long Cords, Store Cords Tangle-Free with This Dead-Simple Wrapping Technique Someday soon(ish), virtually all of your electronics will transfer data and maybe even charge Read more Advertisement Get Up to Date If youre setting some time aside to tidy up your Mac for the spring, the first thing youll want to do is make sure you have all of the latest patches, security updates, and application updates available via Software Update.

If youre running a really old version of Mac OS and youve been thinking about upgrading, theres no time like the present to get on board with OS 10.8 Mountain Lion.

Even if you stick to Snow Leopard, or newer verisons of Mac OS arent supported on your hardware, its worth using Software Update to make sure your system is as up to date as it can be.

Advertisement Uninstall Unnecessary Apps After youve made sure your system is all up to date, its time to dig into your Applications folder and start uninstalling programs that you know you no longer need.

In most cases, uninstalling a Mac app is as simple as dragging the app to the trash, but doing just that can leave orphaned preferences files from those uninstalled apps on your computer.

Wed suggest using an actual uninstaller, like our current favorite, AppCleaner, which is completely free.

If youre willing to spend some coin (13, to be exact), AppZapper has a prettier UI and a few more options, but in the end they both do the same thing.

If you use one of these apps to remove those unwanted programs from your system, you can be sure youre getting rid of all of their associated files as well.

Finally, head into System Preferences, click on Accounts, and clean out the Login Items tab of any applications that you dont want to run on startup.

Sometimes even uninstalled apps leave entries behind, and its a good idea to tidy up your startup items anyway.

Advertisement The Best App Uninstaller for Mac Installing Mac apps is pretty simple, but getting rid of them and all the files they create isnt Read more Advertisement Reclaim Hard Drive Space If youve been following along, youve cleaned up your Mac on the outside, your Mac is up to date, and youve uninstalled the programs you no longer use or need on your system.

Now its time to finish cleaning your Mac up on the inside and get back the hard drive space thats probably being wasted by old VirtualBox images, video game screenshots, or other assorted files you didnt know were lurking on your system.

Advertisement The venerable Disk Inventory X is a great tool that will scan your drives and show you whats eating up all of your space in an easy to understand view, and its completely free.

Alternatively, 10, if you have it to spend, will buy you a copy of Daisy Disk, an app that many of you preferred because it allows you to not just see the contents of your drive in multiple views, but go ahead and delete, compress, and organize your drive quicklyand automatically, without you having to lift a finger.

Mac Cleaner Lifehack