Your Mac’s drive works best at temperatures between 37°C and 46°C (99°F and 115°F). Anything above that would be considered high disk temperature. You know the drive’s overheating when your Mac’s surface feels too hot, the fans start working louder, or you get a High disk temperature alert from macOS.

How serious is that? Well, it’s normal for your Mac to heat up when processing a lot of data, but it’s unhealthy for the drive to continuously work at high temperatures. So, keep an eye open for high disk temperature and don’t let it become a habit.

Why does my Mac’s drive overheat?

📌 Poor ventilation

If it’s a MacBook we’re talking about, you might be accidentally blocking the fan when you put the Mac on your lap or on a blanket. There’s a good chance that the disk just needs some air to cool down.

📌 Dust in the fans

When your Mac’s fans draw in air, they draw in dust, too. Eventually, the dust accumulates, clumps into dust bunnies, and makes it difficult for the fans to do their job.

📌 External heat

If summer’s particularly hot this year, it might be the reason why your drive’s feeling feverish. When the temperature in the room is above 35°C (95°F), the disk just naturally heats up.

📌 Too heavy or too many processes running

Some things going on under the hood of your Mac demand too many resources. When there are heavy apps or multiple background processes running, your disk overheats because the system’s overstrained.

How can CleanMyMac help you solve high disk temperature issue

Of course, CleanMyMac can’t actually cool down your disk. What it can do is help you decrease the load on your system, which is often related to overheating. Try doing the following:

  • Disable unnecessary login items and launch agents using the Performance feature. The fewer unused apps are running, the better.
  • Unless you absolutely have to use resource-heavy apps, consider uninstalling them. Just make sure you use CleanMyMac’s Applications feature for that: if you simply trash the app, its components might still launch background processes.
  • Use the Menu App to monitor CPU and battery temperature and quit heavy consumers. 

You can test these and other features for free for 7 days before you decide whether to purchase the app — get your free trial here.

Now, you know what high disc temperature is. Under some circumstances, it is normal that it goes up (for example, due to leaving your Mac in the sun, although it is not recommended). In case it goes up as a result of heavy loads, you can solve the problem using the all-in-one CleanMyMac app.