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How to Get By with a 128GB MacBook

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If you have a 128GB MacBook, here’s how to get by with that much space without fear of filling it all the way up.

When buying a MacBook, getting the entry-level model can save you a lot of money up front, but that usually means forgoing the higher-capacity models and sticking with the 128GB storage option.

Sometimes, this can be enough storage space for some users, but other users have to be strategic about what to store and what to delete off their MacBooks in order to prevent the storage from filling up.

For a MacBook, 128GB of storage isn’t much, especially if you like to store all of your music, videos, etc. on your computer. That kind of space can fill up rather quickly with all of those files.

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However, if your budget doesn’t allow for spending extra cash on more storage space when buying a new MacBook, not all hope is lost just yet. You can still get by with a 128GB MacBook by taking advantage of a few tips, and using some specialty apps that can help free up storage space with minimal effort.

Of course, you can add extra storage to your MacBook without upgrading, but if you’d rather not mess with upgrading or using accessories by spending even more money, here’s how you can get by with a 128GB MacBook.

Use the Cloud

Perhaps the best thing you could do to save storage space is to use the cloud for all of your media. Music, photos, movies, etc. take up a lot of space, especially if you have a lot of larger files, but utilizing the cloud for all of it can save some serious storage space on your MacBook.

For example, if you have a lot of photos, store them in Dropbox, Google Drive, or other similar cloud storage service. They will all be stored in the cloud rather than on your computer, but you’ll still be able to access them just like with any other file on your computer. You get 2GB for free with Dropbox and 15GB free with Google Drive. You can also pay a small monthly fee for even more cloud storage.

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For music, try a streaming service like Spotify or Rdio, where you can listen to any music you want without storing all of it on your MacBook. It’ll cost you a few dollars per month for on-demand music, but it’s worth it considering that you can get the same access on your iPhone and iPad as well, and you can even create playlists and save certain songs.

As for movies and TV shows, Netflix is a great option to use. They have a fairly large library of TV shows, as well as some good movies to watch as well. There’s also Hulu and Amazon’s Instant Video service if you want more variety.

I use the cloud for pretty much everything, and the only major things taking up space on my MacBook are applications. On my 128GB MacBook Pro, I’m only using 39GB of space, but I still have access to all the music that I would want, as well as movies and TV shows. Plus, my large library of photos is quickly accessible through Dropbox.

Of course, the only downside is that you need an internet connection to access the cloud, but since WiFi can be had pretty much anywhere, not having an internet connection is pretty rare nowadays.

Monitor Your Storage Frequently

MacBook storage can get out of hand when you’re not frequently monitoring what you have stored. For instance, there may have been multiple times where you went to install a new application that you needed for school, but only used it once and have yet to delete it. It’s taking up precious space that could otherwise be used to store important files.

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That’s why it’s always a good idea to take some time every now and then and go through your stuff to delete anything you don’t need anymore. It’s an easy way to free up space to ensure that you don’t run out of storage space on your 128GB MacBook.

One utility that I like to use to find out what’s using up the most space on my MacBook is called Disk Inventory X.

Disk Inventory X will point you to files that you may have forgot you even had on your Mac. From the app, you can delete the files you don’t want or manually navigate to that folder and delete the files from there. Either way, the app will pinpoint where that mysterious 20GB of space is being used at, that way you can pinpoint it and delete it if they’re useless files.

I’ve found Disk Inventory X to be the most helpful app for this kind of stuff, but there are a whole bunch of other things you can do to free up storage space on your Mac.

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