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How do i prune my system files down?

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macrumors newbie
Original poster
Oct 11, 2005
20
0
sunnycoast.au
How do i prune the bloat from my system?
The smallest i seem to be able to manage to prune my system down is to about 18gb?!! no tunes, pics, extraneous apps(except photoshop and some small utilities).

I'm sure most of the files are detritus but how do you know for sure.
I want to clone the basic elements of my 80gb powebook drive onto a 20gb ibook drive as a home laptop for the miss. But 18gb leaves nothing.

Are there any spring cleaning apps out there ?

Any suggestions?
 
I used Monolingual (from versiontracker.com) to get rid of lots of extraneous language files in OS X. I also went under Library/Printers and got rid of almost all of that, as I don't use but one Epson printer. Saved me 1.73GB.

Do a search on these forums, there's quite a few things you can take out. I know Garageband has GB of loops and whatnot in its folder, I don't have it installed though. Do a search.
 
I think you can delete printer drivers from "Printer" in the Libraray folder. I only keep HP and Epson folders for my Macs as I feel I don't plan buying Xerox, Lexmark, Toshiba, and other printers (you can install a driver when you buy a printer anyway on as-needed basis).

I also get rid of the localization. I used deLocalizer from Version Tracker (search that site and it will show you that program) for Panther and Tiger. I felt uneasy using it because the site said it stopped updating deLocalizer after Jaguar (10.2). But, so far, it did not break my OXs. I think you can also delete localization (ie. languages such as Swedish, Danish, Chinese, Korean, and etc. etc) files by going to Receipt folder in Library folder. I saw bunch of foreign language localization files (in *.pkg files, such as Spanish.pkg, Danish.pkg, and etc) and I deleted almost all of language locatiozations except for English (of course) and a few languages I wanted to keep just in case.

With those files deleted, you should save almost 2 GB or more.
 
YS2003 said:
I also get rid of the localization. I used deLocalizer from Version Tracker (search that site and it will show you that program) for Panther and Tiger. I felt uneasy using it because the site said it stopped updating deLocalizer after Jaguar (10.2)...
Click to expand...
That's why a previous poster mentioned Monolingual because
said:
Monolingual is a program for removing unnecesary language resources from Mac OS X, in order to reclaim several hundred megabytes of disk space. It requires at least Mac OS X 10.2 (Jaguar) and also works on Mac OS X 10.3 (Panther) and Mac OS X 10.4 (Tiger).
Click to expand...
Also, if you don't need/ plan to use Garageband, trashing the app and it's associated application support files (all those loops) will easily save you another 2-4GBs.
 
Spin... click!
Spin... click!
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Considering the cheapness of mass storage, I can't imagine why anyone would want to rip out any system files. Applications you won't use, sure I guess, but system files?
 
18Gb is huge. I can make a clean default install of 5Gb and 10Gb with apps. For a computer lab I had a full Panther install with classic and all needed apps down to 3Gb for use on original iMac G3s. Something is wrong there.
 
yippy said:
18Gb is huge. I can make a clean default install of 5Gb and 10Gb with apps. For a computer lab I had a full Panther install with classic and all needed apps down to 3Gb for use on original iMac G3s. Something is wrong there.
Click to expand...
yeah yeah yeah... I hear you. I could do an install from the panther cds and do all the separate installations of the apps and then do the updates(sooo many mbs from OS10.3.0), but i guess i've become attached to doing carbon copy clones. and... it Sheeets me, that i can't get my clone down to less than 18gb.
Thanks for all the tips guys,
The garage band loops tip was a goood one, i'd forgotten about that. ta.
But there are so may preference/assistant/enhancer/library/yaddayaddayadda files strewn throughout the whole system that it just bloats everything out ridiculously.
It's my own fault for installing anything i see on versiontracker that looks cool and free or anything that jon hicks says he likes. sheesh.
 
DeLocalizer will save you up to GB's.
Also, fonts you'll never use, (From the system library AND your own library) Remove duplicates. Remove them from YOUR fonts folder and add them to the system fonts folder.
DO NOT use anything like CLEAN SWEEP. You can too easily destroy your machine.
Is you cache size big? Are you letting Quicktime movies cache?
There is only so much you can really do to save space, but I agree with the above.... let it go. You can get into serious trouble if you start tossing and you're not sure what does what.
My own system library is 22.6GB. My home library is almost 1GB. So what?
 
After pruning some "unnecessary" files off the hard drive, I felt I might have deleted something I should not have. So, rather than being conerned about the possible system instability down the road, I just did the clean reintall with the custom setting.

I basically installed the same programs except for localization files (I kept a few languages such as French, German, and Japanese, just in case) and printer drivers and other free trial programs which came with the Tiger DVD.

Now, my 12" PB has 62 GB of free space compared to 50 GB prior to this clean install. I don't know how come there is such a big difference in the free space since I had the same software files in both instances.

Before I did the clean install, I deleted location files with deLocalizer and printer drivers. But, I did not delete other programs.

It seems the best way is to install OS without features you don't need at the time of install instead of hunting down the files for deletion later.
 
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