CleanLoupeIf Photos is taking up space on your Mac, you have two kinds of fix. If you use iCloud Photos, turn on Optimize Mac Storage so the Mac keeps smaller versions and the full originals stay in iCloud. Whether or not you use iCloud, you can shrink the library itself by removing duplicates, look-alike shots, old screenshots and large videos, all of which land in Recently Deleted for 30 days before they are gone.
This guide covers both, in the order that usually frees the most space for the least effort. Each step links to a longer guide if you want the detail.
First, measure the library
Before you delete anything, find out how big the library actually is and whether it is the real problem.
- Open Apple menu › System Settings › General › Storage. The bar at the top shows which categories use the most space. Click the ⓘ button next to Photos to see the library size.
- In Finder, open your Pictures folder, select Photos Library.photoslibrary and choose File › Get Info (Command-I). The Size line is the library's total footprint on this disk.
If you prefer Terminal, this prints the same figure. If you see "Operation not permitted", Terminal needs Full Disk Access in System Settings › Privacy & Security.
du -sh ~/Pictures/"Photos Library.photoslibrary"
Never move, rename or delete files inside the library package in Finder. Photos keeps a database that points to those files, and editing them by hand can damage the library. Every deletion in this guide happens inside Photos itself or through Photos' own confirmation.
If Photos turns out to be a small slice of the bar, the space is going somewhere else. The guide on what is taking up space on your Mac covers the other categories.
Step 1: Turn on Optimize Mac Storage (iCloud Photos only)
If you already use iCloud Photos, this is the single biggest lever and it deletes nothing.
- Open Photos and choose Photos › Settings, then the iCloud tab.
- Make sure iCloud Photos is on.
- Select Optimize Mac Storage instead of "Download Originals to this Mac".
With this option on, Photos keeps full-resolution originals in iCloud and stores smaller, device-sized versions on the Mac. When disk space runs low, Photos replaces local originals with those smaller versions on its own. When you open or edit a photo, the original downloads again. You need enough iCloud storage to hold the whole library, and the space is freed gradually rather than all at once.
Two things to keep in mind:
- If this Mac is your only full copy, or you keep a separate backup of originals, keep "Download Originals" on that one machine and make sure Time Machine or another backup covers it.
- Optimize Mac Storage frees space on the Mac but does not shrink the library in iCloud. If your iCloud storage is the thing that is full, you still need the steps below.
Step 2: Merge exact duplicates
On macOS 14 and later, Photos finds duplicates for you. In the sidebar, open Utilities › Duplicates. Each set shows the copies side by side with a Merge button. Merging keeps the highest-quality version, combines relevant data, and moves the other copies to Recently Deleted.
The album only appears once Photos has found duplicates, and on a large library it can take a while to finish indexing after you upgrade or import. It catches true copies and copies that differ only in resolution, format or metadata. It does not catch photos taken a second apart.
The full walkthrough, including what the album misses, is in how to find and delete duplicate photos on Mac.
Step 3: Thin out look-alike shots and bursts
Bursts, and the five photos you took to get one where nobody blinked, are often a bigger pile than true duplicates. Photos groups bursts under Media Types › Bursts, and you can open a burst and keep only the frames you want. Shots taken seconds apart without burst mode are harder: Photos has no tool that groups them, so you scroll by date and compare by eye.
For a practical way to work through them, including blurry and badly exposed photos, see how to delete similar photos on Mac and keep the best shot.
Step 4: Clear out screenshots
Screenshots pile up quietly, especially if your iPhone syncs to the same library through iCloud Photos. Open Media Types › Screenshots in the Photos sidebar, select the ones you no longer need, and press Delete. Screenshots taken on the Mac itself usually go to the Desktop rather than Photos, so they need a separate pass in Finder.
Both places, plus how to change where new screenshots are saved, are covered in how to delete screenshots on Mac.
Step 5: Find the large videos
A few long 4K videos can outweigh thousands of photos. Photos has a Media Types › Videos album, but it cannot sort a library by file size. To check one item, select it and choose Window › Info (Command-I) to see its size. A Smart Album (File › New Smart Album, with a rule such as "Photo is movie") keeps videos in one place while you review them.
The guide on how to find large videos in Photos on Mac explains how to work around the missing size sort and what to do with a video you want to keep but not at full size.
Step 6: Empty Recently Deleted when you are sure
Everything you delete in Photos goes to Recently Deleted in the sidebar (under Utilities on recent versions), where it stays for 30 days. The space is not freed until items leave that album. Once you have checked that nothing important went in by mistake:
- Open Recently Deleted. You may need to authenticate with Touch ID or your password.
- Click Delete All, or select specific items and delete them.
If you are not in a hurry, you can simply let the 30 days run out.
Move the library to an external drive
When the library is as small as it is going to get and the internal disk is still full, move the whole library off the Mac:
- Quit Photos.
- Copy Photos Library.photoslibrary (in your Pictures folder by default) to an external drive formatted as APFS or Mac OS Extended. Drag the library itself, never the files inside it.
- Hold Option while you open Photos, choose the copy on the external drive, and check that your photos and albums are all there.
- If you use iCloud Photos, open Photos › Settings › General and click Use as System Photo Library. Only the System Photo Library syncs with iCloud Photos, so skip this and syncing stops.
- Make sure Time Machine or another backup covers the external drive. Only then delete the original from the internal disk.
From then on, keep the drive connected whenever you open Photos. If it's missing, Photos asks you to choose a library.
A word about iCloud Photos and deleting
With iCloud Photos on, deleting a photo on your Mac deletes it from iCloud and from every other device signed in to the same Apple Account, including your iPhone. Recently Deleted is shared too, so you can recover it from any device within 30 days. If you only want the photo off the Mac and not off your phone, deleting is the wrong tool. Use Optimize Mac Storage instead, or move the library to an external drive.
How CleanLoupe does it
CleanLoupe's Photos module does the review work in Steps 2 to 5 in one scan. It reads your Apple Photos library through PhotoKit, Apple's own photo framework, and compares images with Apple's Vision framework on the Mac. No photo leaves the computer.
It groups what it finds into:
- Exact duplicates, so you can choose which copies to delete.
- Look-alike sets of photos taken seconds apart, with the best shot picked and kept.
- Screenshots in your library.
- Large videos of 200 MB or more, listed largest first, which is the size sort Photos does not offer.
- Blurry or badly exposed photos. Photos you have marked as favorites are never flagged.
What it does not do matters as much. CleanLoupe does not perform Photos' Merge. It deletes the copies you choose, so if you want metadata from several copies combined, use the Duplicates album's Merge button. It also does not touch Optimize Mac Storage, which is a Photos setting, and it does not look at screenshots sitting on your Desktop, which you clear in Finder.
Every deletion goes through macOS's own confirmation dialog, and deleted items sit in Photos' Recently Deleted album for 30 days like any other deletion. If you use iCloud Photos, those deletions sync to your other devices exactly as they would from Photos. The app needs photo library access; if you decline it, Photos is skipped, including during Smart Scan.
CleanLoupe is free, with no subscription, ads or account. An iPhone version, CleanLoupe – Photo Cleaner, is coming soon.
FAQ
Why is my Photos library so big on Mac?
Usually because the Mac stores full-resolution originals. That is the default when iCloud Photos is off or set to "Download Originals to this Mac". Long videos, duplicates from repeated imports, bursts and synced iPhone screenshots add up on top of that.
Does Optimize Mac Storage delete my photos?
No. It replaces local full-resolution originals with smaller versions while the originals stay in iCloud Photos, and it downloads an original again when you open it. It only works with iCloud Photos turned on, and you need enough iCloud storage for the whole library.
If I delete photos on my Mac, are they deleted from my iPhone?
Yes, if both devices use iCloud Photos with the same Apple Account. The deletion syncs everywhere, and the item sits in Recently Deleted on every device for 30 days. Without iCloud Photos, the Mac library and the iPhone are separate.
Can I move the Photos library to an external drive?
Yes. Copy the library to an APFS or Mac OS Extended drive, open it by holding Option while you open Photos, and make it the System Photo Library if you use iCloud Photos. The steps are in the section above on moving the library to an external drive.
Why didn't my storage go down after deleting photos?
Deleted items stay in Recently Deleted for 30 days and still count toward storage until they leave it. Empty that album to free the space now. Storage settings can also take a few minutes to update.
When you want to do the review in one pass instead of six, download CleanLoupe and run the Photos scan. You still decide what goes.