Extra Space For Macbook Pro

• Extra Space For Macbook Pro
• Free Up Space On Macbook Pro
• Free Up Space Macbook
• Macbook Pro Vs Macbook Air

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The displays on Apple laptops are lovely, but as with all laptops, limiting. Users have less on-screen room to work than, say, iMac users who benefit from vastly more screen real estate to spread out their apps and documents.

Solutions do exist. When working at a table or desk, MacBook users can connect one or more external displays to create multi-screen workstations. And when on the move, they can harness an iPad as a second display (see 'Catalina's Sidecar Turns an iPad into a Second Mac Monitor,' 21 October 2019).

A Texas company called Xebec has taken a different, novel approach. Its Tri-Screen accessory hangs on the back of a MacBook screen and provides a pair of 10.1-inch displays that slide out on either side. The end result is a compact multi-screen workstation with the laptop's primary screen in the center, and Xebec's secondary displays on the left and right. The Tri-Screen also works with a variety of PC laptops. It lists for $449.99 but is currently available on a holiday sale for $399.99.

Apple macbook keyboard. The Tri-Screen is a promising idea. The implementation needs work.

I have been testing the Tri-Screen for a while and liking the enhanced productivity that such a multi-screen setup affords. But the hardware is quirky in ways that have caused me frustration.

Xebec isn't the only manufacturer to try this trick. A California company called Mobile Pixels has taken a similar tack with its Trio gear. I won't spend much time on the Trio since Mobile Pixels didn't respond to my requests for loaner hardware, but I'll have a few thoughts later on how the Trio compares to the Tri-Screen.

Display Triplication

The Tri-Screen is an ingenious bit of mechanical engineering. Its rectangular chassis consists of two interlocking plastic pieces for adjustable width—and an internal elastic band to create tension.

The chassis fits onto the rear of the MacBook's open screen, and it is thin enough to not seem absurd hanging that way. The elastic band keeps the apparatus clamped onto the laptop lid's edges.

The Tri-Screen's displays, already partially protruding on either side, slide all the way out and have hinges so they can be angled toward the user.

Each screen's outer edge incorporates one Mini HDMI port and two USB-C ports, which are for the necessary cables that connect to the laptop.

Xebec includes two USB-C to USB-C cables, two USB-C to USB-A cables, and two Mini HDMI to HDMI cables. These give the Tri-Screen compatibility with most Apple notebooks going back a half-decade (with, in some cases, a Mini DisplayPort-to-HDMI adapter needed to complete the setup).

Setting up the Tri-Screen is straightforward, especially if you have a laptop with two or more USB-C ports. My MacBook Air has two USB-C ports on the left side, so the cable coming out of the right-hand Tri-Screen display has to snake around the back of the laptop to reach a port.

The screens then activate as expected but may need adjustment. In my case, the image on one screen was upside down, requiring a visit to System Preferences > Displays. Also, one of the displays was blank because I had connected the cable to the wrong USB-C port; one of these ports on each screen is for video, the other for power. My MacBook Air's charging cord plugs into one of those power ports.

In addition, my screens were too dim. System Preferences was no help here. I had to fiddle with the display's generic on-screen controls via awkward mechanical buttons. Even after I maxed out the brightness on both displays, one remained a bit dimmer than the other.

At this point, I was ready to get some work done, but I needed to temper my expectations. Like an iPad used as a Mac display via Sidecar, the Tri-Screen displays are smaller than the MacBook Air's display, so they're best used for secondary items like video-editor toolbars or social-media windows. Something more intricate—like a Numbers spreadsheet or Pages document—can be difficult to make out on the 1920-by-1200 displays. I got a Gmail window to work after zooming way in so I could comfortably read it, but doing so limited the amount of information I could have on the screen.

You can, by the way, use just one Tri-Screen screen if that is all you need, and keep the other tucked away.

Regardless, the Tri-Screen's benefits are obvious. More screens means more room to spread out, with fewer windows stacked atop each other. I felt myself working more efficiently and becoming more productive—that is, when I was not dealing with the Tri-Screen's annoyances.

Tri-Problems

The Tri-Screen is far from a perfect product, and you should carefully consider its shortcomings before deciding whether to invest in one.

• Clutter: If you like to keep your work area tidy, the Tri-Screen may not be for you. As a bit of a neat freak, I became irritated at all the cables connecting the various components. In my case, that totals three USB-C cables, including the laptop charging cable. With a bit of effort, you can minimize visual clutter by arranging the cables mostly out of sight. But such cable complexity makes the workstation time-consuming to set up and break down even though you can keep the Tri-Screen attached to the laptop for (somewhat awkward) transport.
• Instability: The boxy Tri-Screen weighs 2 pounds (907 g), which is enough to cause my MacBook Air's screen to sag backward. Xebec tries to solve this problem with an Allen wrench repurposed as a mini-stand that fits into a hole in the back of the Tri-Screen and props up the laptop screen. However, this hack might not work for those who put their laptops onto angled stands for improved ergonomics when working at a desk.The Tri-Screen also is liable to fall off the laptop lid if you are not careful. Xebec designed the Tri-Screen's upper-left and upper-right edges with lips designed to hold onto a laptop lid, but this attempt doesn't work as well as it should. Depending on which laptop model you own, it might not work at all.
• Connectivity: I mentioned how display settings need tweaking when setting up the Tri-Screen. I had to do this repeatedly. Neither the brightness settings nor the one that prevented the display contents from appearing upside down stuck through sessions. I also had to repeatedly fiddle with System Preferences > Displays > Arrangement because the Tri-Screen displays kept forgetting their logical positions.

You can avoid all of these problems by keeping the laptop in one place, plugged into power, and with Energy Saver set to never sleep. But that, obviously, defeats the entire purpose of having a mobile Mac.

Generally speaking, the Tri-Screen is a quirky accessory that is bound to cause aggravation, as Xebec appears to acknowledge with a detailed troubleshooting page along with an offer to schedule help calls. That's great customer service, but seeing the company go to such lengths doesn't inspire confidence in the product.

Tri-Competition

As I noted, Xebec has competition in Mobile Pixel's Trio product, which sets up in much the same manner. I wasn't able to test it alongside the Tri-Screen, but a look at the company's Web site yields useful bits of information.

The Trio is modular with two standalone screens that are blended to constitute a three-screen workstation. If one extra screen is all you need, just buy a single Trio. The modularity also means you could easily repurpose a Trio for another use, like playing games with a Nintendo Switch.

Extra Space For Macbook Pro

But getting the two screens onto a laptop's lid—a process that involves metal plates, magnets and other doodads—looks like a chore.

The Trio comes in two sizes. The 12.5-inch Trio ($299.99 list; currently on sale for $259.99) is intended for smaller laptops such as my MacBook Air but is larger than the 10.1-inch Tri-Screen, and the 14.1-inch Trio Max ($359.99 list; currently on sale fro $309.99) is for large notebooks such as the 16-inch MacBook Pro.

The Trios have a 16:9 aspect ratio with a 1920-by-1080 pixel resolution, compared to the Tri-Screen's 1920-by-1200 pixel resolution.

Worth the Bother?

I remain intrigued by the idea of attached auxiliary laptop displays to ramp up productivity, but the Tri-Screen is too much of a hassle in its current form, particularly given its price. A regular monitor isn't comparable, of course, but $400 will get you a decent 4K monitor.

I don't want to have to adjust the displays before getting to work every day. Nor did I enjoy continually struggling to keep my screen at the desired angle while worrying about the Tri-Screen becoming dislodged. And, as an OCD sufferer, all that cable clutter is distracting.

I wonder if Xebec should consider a two-display apparatus that wraps around a notebook but doesn't hang off the screen. A number of single displays are available for this purpose, but what I have in mind is a multi-display accessory that stands on its own, positioned behind and around a laptop, and folds up like a portfolio when not in use.

After experimenting with the Tri-Screen, I'm going back to my iPad and the Sidecar feature when I need a secondary MacBook display. It's less messy and doesn't require a lot of fiddling to get working. You can even attach your iPad to the left or right edge of a MacBook's display using a Mountie accessory that my TidBITS colleague Jeff Porten found 'transformative' (see 'Attach an iPad to Your MacBook as a Second Display with Mountie,' 22 February 2019).

'No matter what I do, my Mac is still slow', an average tech-consultant hears this phrase multiple times a day. Give a person even the most powerful computer, and pretty soon it will be cluttered with apps, extensions, and things that are too much for it to handle. To reverse it, one has to go back and сlean up the mess, removing memory agents one by one. Prepare for a fight — every byte of memory is at stake. So let's put your Mac on a diet and get it more free RAM to breathe freely.

First, remove desktop clutter. Get a combination of Setapp apps that clear away unneeded desktop files.

'Your system has run out of application memory'

How do you know your Mac is low on memory? Floating 'rainbow wheels' aside, you may notice your Mac now takes ages to load. You'll also see many browser applications crashing. You'll be also thrown warning messages as 'Your system has run out of application memory'. To help it, you should first visit the Activity monitor to see memory usage on Mac.

How to check RAM usage on Mac

Go to Applications and type in Activity Monitor in the search bar. This invokes a good old Activity Monitor that should tell how much free memory you've got left.

A shortcut to open Activity Monitor:

Press F4 and start typing Activity Monitor in the search bar.

I've attached a screenshot from my Mac and as you can see my memory usage almost reached full capacity. Here's what it all means:

App memory: taken by apps and processes
Wired memory: reserved by apps, can't be freed up
Compressed: inactive, can be used by other apps
Swap used: memory used by macOS
Cached files: memory you can really use

Notice the colored graph under Memory Pressure. If your graph is all but red and yellow, your Mac is really gasping for fresh memory. It seems counter-intuitive, but 'available memory' your Activity Monitor is not that important after all. In fact, it's a system intended behavior to use all memory resources when available. On the contrary, the Memory Pressure graph is much more telling, so grow a habit to check this graph in the Activity Monitor every now and then.

How to check CPU usage on Mac

Open the CPU tab in Activity Monitor to keep in check CPU-heavy processes. Normally an app would be using 0-4% of CPU. If it takes abnormally more than that, go inside that particular item in the list and press the Quit button.

How to free up memory on Mac

Tip # 1. Remove Login Items to lower Mac memory usage

Login items are programs that load automatically upon Mac startup. Some of them covertly add themselves to the list and this is no good. If you're looking to free up RAM, they are the first candidates for deletion. Don't worry, you're not deleting the app itself, you just stop it from auto-launching every time.

So, to remove Login Items and at the same time reduce your memory usage of your Mac, you need to:

1. Open System Preferences and select Users & Groups.
2. Click your nickname on the left.
3. Select the Login Items tab.
4. Check programs you don't want to load as your Mac starts.
5. Press the '–' sign below.

Now, you won't see these apps pop up the moment you turn on your Mac. Although this method doesn't require some superpowers of yours, some special Mac optimization and memory cleaner tools may do the job faster and ensure the smooth performance of your Mac. CleanMyMac X is an excellent example of such software. Here's how to disable Login Items with CleanMyMac X:

1. Download it for free and go to the Optimization tab.
2. Check Login Items to see the list of apps that get opened when you start your Mac.
3. Click Remove.

As you've already come to the Optimization module of CleanMyMac, you can also fix hung apps and heavy memory consumers there. In this way, you'll free up the solid amount of RAM on Mac — 100% free of charge.

Tip # 2. Free up disk space if Mac is low on memory

The available space on your Mac's drive translates into virtual memory. This comes to save you when you've run out of physical RAM. So now your computer relies on your hard drive space to keep your apps going.

The classic geek rule of thumb holds it that you should keep at least 20% of disk space on your startup drive. Not only this potentially reduces your future spending on iCloud storage but it also keeps your Mac speedier.

What to delete to free up space:

• Large unused files, like movies
• Old downloads
• Rarely used applications
• System junk

But here's a simpler solution to save your time — clean up your drive with CleanMyMac X— the app I've mentioned above. Many users recommend it as an excellent way to free up more space because it searches for large & old files, useless system files, Photo junk, mail attachments and shows everything you can safely delete. Interestingly, it finds about 74 GB of junk on an average computer.

Extra trick: How to free up RAM on Mac with CleanMyMac X

If you have downloaded CleanMyMac, you may also take advantage of its amazing feature — the ability to free up RAM in a few seconds. Try this next time you see 'Your system has run out of application memory' message.

1. Go to the Maintenance tab on the left.
2. Click Free Up RAM.
3. Click Run.

As simple as that!

And you can do it even if you download a free version of the app.

Tip # 3. Clean up your Desktop

This tip always comes at the bottom of instructions and unfairly so as it is quite effective. Without even looking at your Desktop I would assume it's cluttered with mountains of icons. Thing is, your macOS was designed in a way that it treats every Desktop icon as a little active window. The more icons, the heavier memory usage on Mac. So in order to release available memory resources, it's recommended to keep your Desktop clean.

You don't have to do it all by yourself. With apps like Declutter and Spotless, every desktop cleaning session will be scheduled in advance and executed automatically. Your only job is to define the rules on how your files should be organized.

Tip #4. Clear cache files

Another way to free up RAM on Mac is to clear it of cache files. Of course, it won't save you gigabytes of space, but deleting cache regularly, you can help your Mac run faster and avoid system issues.

So, to remove cache files on your Mac, you need to:

1. Open Finder.
2. From the Go menu, select Go to Folder.
3. Type ~/Library/Caches in the field and press Go.
4. In the window that appears, you will see all your cache files.
5. Press Command+A to select all files or delete files one by one.
6. Enter your user name and password to confirm.

If you find some files still in the folder after you emptied it, maybe you have some windows open on your Mac. Just like that, you can save up some space on your Mac. Don't forget to empty the bin afterward.

Tip # 5. Tune up Chrome's Task Manager

Although Google Chrome is not the one to blame for massive memory usage, it can indeed affect your Mac's performance. If you use Chrome as your primary browser, you probably have many windows opened there. Chrome runs a lot of processes to ensure a fast browsing experience for you. So, it uses your RAM for storing your tabs, plugins, and extensions. Look at how many entries Google Chrome has in Activity Monitor:

The question then arises, 'Why does Chrome use so much RAM?' The thing is that each process is responsible for a separate plugin or extension of your browser. For example, when a tab unexpectedly falls, you need to refresh it to continue your work there. If one process were responsible for all tabs and extensions, you would need to restart the whole browser instead. Can you imagine how many times would you do that? That's the proper answer to why Chrome uses so much RAM.

I've been using Chrome for some years only to discover (recently) that Chrome had a task manager of its own. You can use it to force quit memory-heavy processes in the browser. It's a handy tool because it lets you see how a page weighs on CPU usage on a Mac.

1. Go to Chrome settings (dotted icon in the top right corner)
2. Click More tools -> Task Manager
   

To free up even more RAM, close the GPU process. The GPU Process, though helpful in theory to accelerate pages, eats up a considerable amount of memory. Click to end it to free up RAM on your Mac.

Tip # 6. Manage RAM usage with CleanMyMac X menu

CleanMyMac X has another useful and convenient feature for managing your Mac's performance and memory usage. As you install CleanMyMac X and start it for the first time, it's icon will appear in your menu bar. Click the icon to open the CleanMyMac X menu. Here you can find updates on the current condition of your Mac and perform quick tweaks to increase your Mac's speed. Whenever you feel like your Mac underperforms, open the CleanMyMac X menu to check how much RAM is available and free it up as well.

Tip # 7. Close Finder windows

Okay, suppose you're still asking yourself, how do I clear RAM on my MacBook Pro/MacBook Air. The next trick is as magical (you'll see for yourself) as it is time-saving. It's no secret that each window in the Finder eats up RAM. But how many open windows are there? Some of them are collapsed or stacked in some blind spot on your screen. This Finder command merges all your windows into one. See how to do it:

Click on Finder > Window > Merge All Windows

Free Up Space On Macbook Pro

Now you can manage Finder windows more effectively and free up memory on MacBook.

What else you can do to minimize memory usage on Mac

I've saved the easiest tips for the end, as long as these ones are self-explanatory.

• Replace AdBlock (very memory-demanding) with a lighter extension
• Keep fewer opened tabs in the browser
• Restart your Mac more often to free up RAM
• Close all hung-up print queues

Free Up Space Macbook

That was my take on how to make your Mac a bit speedier to use. If you're looking for more guidance, check simple ways to speed up your Mac.

Frequently Asked Questions

How to check application memory on Mac?

To check RAM usage on your Mac, go to Activity Monitor (Applications > Utilities). In the Memory tab, you will see all the active processes that are using your Mac's RAM. At the end of the window, there is a Memory Used graph, which indicates how much application memory is used.

How to find out whether your Mac needs more RAM?

Your Mac may be using almost all its RAM, but you don't need more if it's using it efficiently. Open Activity Monitor and go to the Memory tab. The Memory Pressure graph shows the current condition of your RAM: green color means your Mac's using RAM effectively, while yellow is a sign that some application or process is using too much of application memory. The red memory pressure signals that your Mac needs more RAM.

How to quickly free up RAM on your MacBook?

Macbook Pro Vs Macbook Air

To free up RAM on your Mac, firstly, you should find out what app uses so much of your memory. The memory-heavy programs are listed in Activity Monitor, Memory tab. If there is an app you aren't using at the moment, click it and press the 'X' sign to quit it. This will, in turn, free some of the application memory

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