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Deleting Installer Files

E

ewoh24

macrumors regular
Original poster
Hi Folks,

Even with all of the excitement about the kick butt new G5, the world goes on and I have a "boring" question about installer files.
I have 811.9 MB of installer files. What the heck are these? Can I delete them with no issues poping up? 811.9 MB seems like an awful lot of space if installer files are what I think they are (Documents about software I've installed?) As you can tell, I'm obviously confused! Please help...

Scott
 
installer files as in "installers" which install the program?
or installer logs?

it should be fine to delete either one, though you may want to back up installers if you have a hard time finding these legitimate programs. installer logs on the other hand are simply that...a log of what was installed and where. should cause no damage deleting them.
 
I should have said that I am running OmniDiskSweeper and what is coming up is in my Applications Folder there is a folder called "Installers". Then there is a huge file called "Archive.pax" that is 490 MB. It goes like this: Applications--->Installers--->Developer Tools--->Dev Documentation--->Contents--->Archive.pax

Why is this file so huge?
 
i've never seen such a file or the extension .pax ... perhaps it is application specific, meaning a certain app created it. try opening the file and see what it does...then again...it could be a windows virus 🙄

my suggestion is, to try opening it. if it doesn't do anything...delete it...

if it does do something, then you should judge whether it is important or not...(note that you should make sure you have all your original application discs in case it is needed for a specific app, which i highly doubt)

my guess is that it's completely unimportant...but come back and let me know the outcome!
 
if i remember right, sometimes OS X saves installer files in a cache, whether it's for offline work (if you download it) or what, i dunno. I've deleted similar files in the past without files.

pnw
 
Originally posted by paulwhannel
I've deleted similar files in the past without files.

pnw
Click to expand...
logic dictates that if you delted files, you would be without said files 😉

did you mean without troubles?
 
Originally posted by ewoh24
I should have said that I am running OmniDiskSweeper and what is coming up is in my Applications Folder there is a folder called "Installers". Then there is a huge file called "Archive.pax" that is 490 MB. It goes like this: Applications--->Installers--->Developer Tools--->Dev Documentation--->Contents--->Archive.pax

Why is this file so huge?
Click to expand...
This is the installer for the developer tools. If you're not going to be installing them (or if you already have) you can delete it. In reality if you haven't installed them abd want to, it would be good to get the latest version from Apple's website anyway.
 
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