How to find large video files on a Mac
By Vishva Variya · Updated · 4 min read
Short answer
In Finder, press ⌘F, set the first rule to Kind is Movie, click + and add File Size (enable it under Other…) greater than 500 MB, then sort by Size. Screen recordings are .mov files named “Screen Recording” plus the date. In Terminal, mdfind with kMDItemContentTypeTree and kMDItemFSSize lists the same videos.
How do I find big videos with a Finder search?
- 1Open a Finder window, press ⌘F and click This Mac.
- 2Set the first rule to Kind › is › Movie.
- 3Click + to add a second rule. Open its first menu, choose Other…, tick File Size and click OK.
- 4Set File Size › is greater than › 500 › MB.
- 5Switch to list view and click the Size column to put the largest first.
Click Save to keep it as a Smart Folder in the sidebar; it updates as videos come and go. In the search field, kind:movie on its own does the first rule for you.
Where do screen recordings end up, and how do I list them all?
macOS names each one “Screen Recording” followed by the date and time and saves it as a .mov file, in the same place as your screenshots: whatever Save to points at under ⇧⌘5 › Options. Recordings that were moved to Downloads or iCloud Drive keep the name, so a name search finds them wherever they went:
mdfind -onlyin ~ 'kMDItemFSName == "Screen Recording*"'Recordings you’ve already shared or uploaded are usually the safest large files to clear.
How do I list large videos in Terminal, biggest first?
mdfind -0 -onlyin ~ 'kMDItemContentTypeTree == "public.movie" && kMDItemFSSize > 500000000' | xargs -0 du -h | sort -hrpublic.movie matches every video type Spotlight knows (.mov, .mp4, .m4v and the rest), and kMDItemFSSize is in bytes, so 500000000 is about 500 MB. It reads Spotlight’s index, so it’s fast, but folders excluded from Spotlight are left out. It only lists.
Where do large videos usually hide?
- The Desktop, or wherever screen recordings are saved.
- Downloads: videos AirDropped from an iPhone, meeting recordings, course files.
- Exports from iMovie or Final Cut Pro, often saved next to the project and forgotten.
- The Photos library. Its videos don’t show up as separate files in Finder; open Photos and choose Media Types › Videos in the sidebar instead.
Delete a video only once it’s backed up, uploaded or shared where you need it. A recording you made once is the one copy there is.
Finding big videos with Peekaboo
Peekaboo keeps all your videos on one shelf with a running total, and its search takes size and age the way you’d say them. Clean Up goes further with a Big old videos card: videos you haven’t touched in a long time, ready to review. Whatever you remove goes to the Trash, and the whole cleanup can be put back.
- 1Press ⌘F and type “videos over 1 GB” or “videos older than 6 months”.⌘F
- 2Open Clean Up and check the Big old videos card.⇧⌘K
- 3Put back anything you moved by mistake.⌥⌘Z
Questions
Why does a TypeScript .ts file show up in a movie search?
- The .ts extension is also used for MPEG transport-stream video, so Spotlight can file code as a movie. A size rule of a few hundred megabytes filters nearly all of them out.
Why does Storage settings show more video than Finder finds?
- Videos inside the Photos library and films downloaded in the TV app live in app libraries, not as loose files. Manage them in their apps. With Optimize Storage on, macOS removes Apple TV movies and shows you’ve already watched.
Why didn’t free space go up after I deleted a video?
- It’s still in the Trash until you empty it, and a local Time Machine snapshot can hold a recently deleted file for a while. macOS frees snapshot space on its own when it’s needed.