How Can You Clean up and Backup Your Hard Drive?

Your operating system includes a built-in tool for highlighting and removing data you can safely live without. On Windows, search for “disk cleanup” from the taskbar, then launch the utility that appears as the top result—it lets you get rid of downloaded files, temporary files, Windows error reports and more.

For macOS, open the Apple menu, then pick About This Mac, Storage, and Manage. The options on the next screen let you safely erase a variety of temporary files and redundant data, covering everything from rented movies that you’ve now watched to photos that have already been backed up to the cloud.

Backing up your files

When it comes to backing up your most important files, you can’t have too many copies of them: Remember that cloud copies are still susceptible to data loss or corruption, and that external hard drives may not survive if you’re unlucky enough to have a fire, flood, or burglary at home. Two copies is good, three copies is better.

Your first options are the backup utilities built into Windows and macOS, which use external drives connected to your computer. With Windows you’ve got File History, which you can find via Update & Security and Backup in Settings (full details here), and on macOS there’s Time Machine, available via Time Machine in System Preferences (full details here).

If you’ve bought an external disk drive then it may well come with some backup software of its own, and there are a plethora of third-party tools on the market as well—from the free and comprehensive Cobain Backup (Windows), to the $50 Acronis True Image 2020 (Windows and macOS), which is packed with advanced features.

Some programs, like Carbon Copy Cloner (macOS, $39.99 after a 30-day trial), are able to create backup drives you can boot from to recover your data.