im finding that im using up my 60GB HD pretty quickly and wont have space to partition it for bootcamp/windows. what are thoughts on reinstalling OS X and leaving out programs/languages/etc in order to free up more space? how much space would this free up exactly? thanks.
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Freeing up more HD space
- Thread starter chairguru22
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mad jew
Moderator emeritus
Most of the apps you want to delete can be dragged to the Trash and the languages can be removed using Monolingual. One of the biggest space-takers on new Macs is the accompanying loops for Garageband and the themes for iDVD. If you don't use these apps, I'd think about getting rid of these items too. 🙂
calebjohnston
macrumors 68000
Vote numero dos for monoligual. You'll save probably 2 gigs if you delete all languages outside of English.
As madjew said, garageband's loops equal roughly 3 GB I believe, so they're a good place to start looking to gain space back as well.
You can also consider backing up movies/videos to a DVD or a few CD's, and then just keep them handy for when you actually want to watch them. They take up a lot of space to just sit around doing nothing.
As madjew said, garageband's loops equal roughly 3 GB I believe, so they're a good place to start looking to gain space back as well.
You can also consider backing up movies/videos to a DVD or a few CD's, and then just keep them handy for when you actually want to watch them. They take up a lot of space to just sit around doing nothing.
i used monolingual and there are options on removing architectures, can i remove all the PowerPC ones and what happens if i do? (im using an intel macbook)
i have 32 free gigs and 8 gigs of music so that means that 20 gigs (60GB HD) are for the pre-installed OS and apps? thats an awful lot...
i have 32 free gigs and 8 gigs of music so that means that 20 gigs (60GB HD) are for the pre-installed OS and apps? thats an awful lot...
mad jew
Moderator emeritus
20GB is a ridiculously large system. Use an app like OmniDiskSweeper to see where it's all being used. Just remember to use it in an account with administrative permissions so it has access to your entire system.
As for languages, leave the PPC English one, even though it won't get used. From memory, removing it can cause problems. I think the ability to remove it may have even been disabled since. Otherwise, ditch 'em all. 🙂
As for languages, leave the PPC English one, even though it won't get used. From memory, removing it can cause problems. I think the ability to remove it may have even been disabled since. Otherwise, ditch 'em all. 🙂
janey
macrumors 603
URGH!! Don't!!!! I used monolingual to strip ppc and ppc64 from the unibins on my machine (freed up a lot of space..), but it's been screwy ever since, and a lot of stuff needed to be replaced (basically half the apps in /Applications/Utilities and some of the other apps, as well as some system stuff that i don't quite remember off the top of my head, the one big stinking fat big issue being Installer.app - i can't install anything, no updates, no applications..pacifist isn't perfect and commandline installer doesn't always work either) because it just wouldn't work anymore. I'm planning an erase and install after finals are over at school and I don't need my system for anything important.chairguru22 said:
If you REALLY can't surpress the urge to strip the PPC stuff, at least don't touch anything in any of the system folders. Only do it for your own non-system programs in /Applications, and don't include the /Applications/Utilities folder.
mad jew
Moderator emeritus
Interesting. I thought problems only arose if you deleted the language you would be utilising if your machine was PPC. I guess it's better to play it safe though, and leave all PPC languages alone. Considering it's fine to get rid of Intel languages that aren't in use, this surprises me a little.
Glad you managed to free up 40GB too. 😛
Glad you managed to free up 40GB too. 😛
janey
macrumors 603
😱 yeah. errr, there's a feature in monolingual that lets you strip unneeded architectures from files (i assume using lipo or something) in addition to removing languages... i didn't touch any of the variants of english or the any other languages I needed. i did strip ppc64 and ppc i think, and ever since then things've been funky.mad jew said:
And yeah! my startup drive was 80gb...I figured all that missing space was from the 200 apps I had installed...guess I was wrong 😱
thanks for all the advice.
i used monolingual to get rid of languages and it said it freed up 130MB but i think it was more like 2GB... i also got rid of some printer drivers which freed up about 1GB. i found that iDVD themes, Keynote themes, Garageband apple loop sounds, and iLife sounds takes up a total of about 5GB! i think ill back up those files and then delete them but that a heckuva lotta space for music files and themes...
edit: oh and im guessing (from above) that PPC means PowerPC and they were talking about architectures... i didnt touch those thankfully..
i used monolingual to get rid of languages and it said it freed up 130MB but i think it was more like 2GB... i also got rid of some printer drivers which freed up about 1GB. i found that iDVD themes, Keynote themes, Garageband apple loop sounds, and iLife sounds takes up a total of about 5GB! i think ill back up those files and then delete them but that a heckuva lotta space for music files and themes...
edit: oh and im guessing (from above) that PPC means PowerPC and they were talking about architectures... i didnt touch those thankfully..
I installed an app called Disk Inventory X after reading about it here. The biggest file on my mini is iWorks. That is just a demo of the app isnt it? I just bought the mini about a week ago and was also looking to eliminate unnecessary stuff. iWorks doenst look like anything I will be using, so can I just drag the whole iWorks folder to the trash? Will that uninstall the demo of it? That folder alone is 1.95gb.
VoodooDaddy said:
yea i noticed iworks is that big too. i think ill use the demo and see if i like it but i will probably delete it after a month (same thing with the Office Test Drive).
Some_Big_Spoon
macrumors 6502a
When I got my new 2.0 White MB I did a clean install (same thing as always), ran Apple updates then ran Monolingual to strip the languages and PPC code.
I then tried to install CS2, Office, and a couple of other Rosetta-running apps.. no dice. I at first thought it was just the MB's issue, but after tinkering in the .pkg files and terminal I found out something which I haven't seen explicitly anywhere else, namely Rosetta itself has necessary PPC code in it which is used (in some complicated way) to run the PPC apps in emulation.
Long story short, you can't strip the PPC code, which is, yeah, frustrating, since it's over a gig of "useless" code that you could reclaim. What I'm looking to do is write a new prog, or modify monolingual, to leave the necessary Rosetta code, and strip PPC binaries from individual apps, i.e. iphoto, iDVD, etc. You can't strip the PPC code from PPC only apps because they won't run, because, well, they're PPC.
Anyone else have better specs on what I should be looking for? Janey, you seem like a knowledgeable geek, any leads?
I then tried to install CS2, Office, and a couple of other Rosetta-running apps.. no dice. I at first thought it was just the MB's issue, but after tinkering in the .pkg files and terminal I found out something which I haven't seen explicitly anywhere else, namely Rosetta itself has necessary PPC code in it which is used (in some complicated way) to run the PPC apps in emulation.
Long story short, you can't strip the PPC code, which is, yeah, frustrating, since it's over a gig of "useless" code that you could reclaim. What I'm looking to do is write a new prog, or modify monolingual, to leave the necessary Rosetta code, and strip PPC binaries from individual apps, i.e. iphoto, iDVD, etc. You can't strip the PPC code from PPC only apps because they won't run, because, well, they're PPC.
Anyone else have better specs on what I should be looking for? Janey, you seem like a knowledgeable geek, any leads?
janey said:
janey
macrumors 603
Well, that's the thing, if I knew, or for that matter, if anybody knew exactly, it would be in Monolingual without a warning.Some_Big_Spoon said:
So really I've resigned myself to the fact that I'm going to spend the extra time to double check that the only apps that I strip ppc from are apps I installed and not system apps next time I run monolingual 🙁
Some_Big_Spoon
macrumors 6502a
Can you choose which apps, packages, etc. in Monolingual to strip? I thought it was an All-Or-None situation?
janey said:
Some_Big_Spoon
macrumors 6502a
Yep, it's an all-or-none. I'm hoping that someone, maybe the Monolingual peeps themselves, will write an app that will leave the necessary Rosetta files and junk the UniBi's. I'm not missing that half gig or so now, but gimmie a few months and I'll be hurtin'.
janey said: