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newtomacs11

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Sep 26, 2011
8
0
im trying to free up some hd space and have a lot of png and aif files with random pictures i never seen before. i want to delete them but when do i get a prompt to put in my password to make changes in finder. i just don't want to delete anything i don't need but nothing that will harm my mac and how it was when i first got it. pls help!
 
i installed mic office and a kodak picture manager. i find a slew of random pics when i go to finder/search for/all images. and i cant find any of these pics anywhere else. menuitem_submenuindicator_disabled.png don't know if you can see this but this is one of the pics that i need my password to delete.
 
Using the Search For section of the Sidebar is not recommended to delete items from, as it is only showing search results and you don't seem to know, what these images are (and no, I can't see them*).
As you can't find them anywhere, it means, they are probably hidden and better left alone.
And I don't know, if deleting an image or hundred images with small file size will get you that much more free HDD capacity.

In the end, go to the ACTUAL folder to delete data, and if you get asked for a password, it means the system or an application needs it, thus you shouldn't delete it anyway.

Was that understandable?
 
yes thank you! i was about to screw myself over probably. ill get an external hd and use time machine and delete the files to see the effects a safer way! I also learned something new today. Thanks a bunch again.
 
yes thank you! i was about to screw myself over probably. ill get an external hd and use time machine and delete the files to see the effects a safer way! I also learned something new today. Thanks a bunch again.

Also look into CarbonCopyCloner, as it creates a bootable 1:1 copy (clone) of your system HDD (or any other HDD you choose), thus you can delete those files (though you might not see any errors yet, as you probably won't test everything) and if the system is frelled up, you can boot from the clone and clone it back to the internal HDD.

Btw, you could use the Path Bar to show you the location of the file you selected in the "All Images" search result.
2011_12_05_pB1_Finder_PathBar.png
 
yes thank you! i was about to screw myself over probably. ill get an external hd and use time machine and delete the files to see the effects a safer way! I also learned something new today. Thanks a bunch again.

I think it would be silly to delete the pictures. They are there because some programs need them to run properly (icons, clip art in office etc).

Why do you need to rid your system of them if they're not invasive?

If you need more HD space, deleting those sort of pictures isn't going to net you much.
 
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