Deleting content in DOWNLOADS folder...?

JReynolds said:

My MBP only has 1.67GB of free space left and I'm trying to clean it up now. If I delete ALL the stuff out of the downloads folder (5.56GB) will I lose anything? It's mostly .dmgs, pictures and music folders. I've already placed the music in itunes, the pics in iphoto and the dmgs are installed.

Am I in the clear to delete all the content in the downloads folder?

Thanks for the noob help.

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Of course, you'll lose any files you delete. It depends on your preference settings in iTunes and iPhoto. If you've set them to copy files when adding to the library, you're safe. If not, deleting the files in your Downloads folder will remove them from your iTunes and iPhoto libraries. Whatever you choose to delete, don't empty your Trash until you've made sure you didn't delete something you needed.

dmgs are probably the easiest to delete, since you said you have already installed them.

As for the pics and music, put everything in the trash, then go into iPhoto and iTunes and look for photos and songs that you know were in that downloads folder. If you can 'play' those pics and songs, they have already been copied over to the respective libraries for each program.

Check the preferecnes.

Again, dmgs are fairly safe to delete and will probably be your larger files anyway.

(Aside: I have maybe 15 files right now in my downloads folder. I clear it out and place 'keepers' in other folders at least every few days. Maybe to force you into this habit, you can tell your computer to download to the desktop and the clutter will force you to clean things up sooner. Especially since your disc space is at a premium.)

You can also free up some disk space by using Monolingual to remove unwanted languages and architectures. Be careful in using it, so you don't delete something you need. Be sure to ask questions if you're not sure about something. It can save you 1-3GB.