hey, i just wanted to know if there was any way i could delete unwanted/unused printer drivers, i kinda need some extra hard drive space.
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getting rid of unwanted print drivers
- Thread starter biohazard6969
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biohazard_6969 said:
Wow...I was going to say it isn't worth it, but my /library/printers folder is >1.5GB!!!
Can that be right? (10.4.1)
Print Drivers
Hey,
I did a clean install of Tiger last week - and noticed HOW MUCH space the Print drivers required.
I only use HP printers, so de-selected the others - Saved me a lot of space (not an issue with 250GB) but it may mean more to people who have smaller drives.....
Anyway, when I tried to hook up a HP 7690 accross a LAN - it didnt print properly and i had to download 70-80MB of crap from HP. I couldn't be arsed. Might sort it out later - but yeah - when you do an install for Tiger - open up the 'Drivers' tabe and see what gets put on - a lot of it in my opinion is useless!
FireArse
Hey,
I did a clean install of Tiger last week - and noticed HOW MUCH space the Print drivers required.
I only use HP printers, so de-selected the others - Saved me a lot of space (not an issue with 250GB) but it may mean more to people who have smaller drives.....
Anyway, when I tried to hook up a HP 7690 accross a LAN - it didnt print properly and i had to download 70-80MB of crap from HP. I couldn't be arsed. Might sort it out later - but yeah - when you do an install for Tiger - open up the 'Drivers' tabe and see what gets put on - a lot of it in my opinion is useless!
FireArse
where is this folder?!?!?! i spotlighted printer drivers and all i got was reciept thingys that i deleted but it didn't free up anything......
biohazard_6969 said:
/library/printers *is* the location.
You go to the main hard drive, then the library folder that's in the root of it (not in your user directory), and then in the printers folder within.
To answer the initial question, I'm pretty sure you can just delete the entire folder for printers you don't have: e.g. delete the "Epson" folder if you don't have an Epson (yeesh! that would save 256 MB for me!). You can always download the specific driver you need later if it turns out you need it.
To be sure, just trash a couple (but don't empty trash) and see if you can still print.
To be sure, just trash a couple (but don't empty trash) and see if you can still print.
Those drivers never seem to work for me, I keep ending up having to download the driver anyway. So I just deselect the whole thing, along with the languages. In fact, installing Tiger I deselected everything. I only installed the essential system files, you don't need anything else. Okay maybe X11 if you're into that kind of thing, but that's it.
Raven VII said:
Interesting. I have never had to install a driver in OS X.
Not for my cameras, not for any of the printers I've used, or for anything else. I quite like it. That 1.5 gigs is as much room as XCode would take, but.... yeah, for now I'll let it ride. If I really want XCode I do have room for it too.....
Abstract said:My 40GB HD in my Powerbook may appreciate your advice in a few months time.
I know...my problem is I keep buying music, and I keep taking pictures on my 6+ MP camera!
If I had no appreciation for the beauty in art I wouldn't have these problems... 
When I got my iBook I did a custom install and didn't keep any of the print drivers. Reason is most printers come with a cd with the drivers needed or you can just get them from the web site. Also I only checked the English language and didn't keep any others for a total 2.1 gigs saved by not having all the extras for a "might need them day". Print drivers were around 1.5, 1.6 gigs alone and everything still works after I removed them.
and everything still works after I removed them.
Raven VII said:
yeah thats the same with me, i went through hell trying to set up my hp deskjet 5800 printer to work over rendezvous (bonjour now, but rendezvous when i did it) i ended up installing a driver from the hp site
biohazard_6969 said:
I found it interesting that Apple stopped maintaining a list of printers that work over Rendezvous. But whenever I have used a printer off that list, with pre-installed drivers in the OS and connected via Rendezvous/Bonjour or IP, I have always been able to use the built-in driver. In fact, in one case, with HP 2300dn's, at school for some reason, none of our Win2k machines can properly print two-up on this printer, using the standard windows driver for the printer, but I can print two-up using the standard Mac driver. That was really odd. We always thought someone had gone and made some weird firmware setting on the printer to prevent this from working.