Creating space on my mac mini.

[JoeJoe]

Hi,

I currently store all music, photo's and movies on my mac mini. I access them from my ibook and powerbook via file-sharing on my wireless network. I love it.

Anyway, my 80GB mini has only 15 GB left, so I'm concerned about running out of HD space (especially now that I'm into Battlestar Galactica and need to download season 2!).

Long story short, is there any reason why I can't delete everything off(files, applications, etc) with the execption of iTunes and iPhoto, thus "freeing up" substantial disk space for additional stuff? No applications are on it other than what came with Tiger.

My current photo/music/movie stuff takes up probably 20GB total(at least according to my ipod), so I'm a little confused as to why I only have 15GB left - but that's another issue.

Thanks in advance everyone!

 

[wordmunger]

You should have more space than that. The base install is only about 20 GB.

That said, uninstalling is easy. Just drag apps to the trash.

see also: http://guides.macrumors.com/Uninstalling_Applications_in_Mac_OS_X

[obvious] did you empty your trash?[/obvious]

 

[JoeJoe]

Thanks, wordmunger.

I'm going to get rid of all the apps I don't need on that machine and see what kind of space I can free up.

I think it's weird too that I only have 15GB left considering how small my library is.

I'll download something from macupdate that will graphically show me what's taking up so much space.

I might have inadvertantly created copies of my music/photo's/movies or something.

Thanks again.

 

[Super Macho Man]

Doing a custom reinstall of OS X might be a good idea too. From the factory, Macs come with several GBs of useless stuff like internationalization files, printer drivers for every printer that you'll never use, etc. You could shave off a few gigs that way. Or use something like OmniDiskSweeper to find out what's taking so much space.

 

[theman5725]

Download WhatSize. It tells you exactly what is taking up space. You may be surprised how much space some stuff takes up, especially printer drivers.

 

[brokecollegeF04]

My solution to the cramped mini was..
I got a 250gb external Hard drive.. and then i moved my home folder to that..
works great.. now I have all the room in the world on my boot/apps drive. With the custom install I have 42.05gb left

 

[JoeJoe]

"Whatsize" is the one I was thinking about....thank you! I'll use that tonight and clean some more stuff out.

I found sleuthed out a little more information(if anyone cares):

1) In iPhoto I have "orginals" and "modified". The Modified is about 2/3 as large as originals. All I can figure is these are the one's that we, well, modified (red eye reduction, etc). That's about 4 GB right there.

2) I have some movies from my minidv that I forgot about......those files are HUGE. Combined about 12GB. From now on I think I'll just buy new tapes rather than download to my hard drive and erase the tape.

3) I plan on getting a lacie 250gb external once "time machine" comes out with Leopard. For now, I just keep my backup photo's on my powerbook and my backup music/movies on my ibook.

Thanks everyone.