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How to lighten up OS X

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dannyss

macrumors member
Original poster
Nov 25, 2006
46
0
Just bought a MBP C2D 17" glossy, 160 Gig yesterday.
I've been a windows user for the last 22 years.
With the idea of maximizing the HD space, what can be done to the OS X installation to free up some disk space?
Are there specific directories that can be deleted after an installation (Windows Temp directories as an example) or obscure libraries that are most likely not needed?
 
dannyss said:
Just bought a MBP C2D 17" glossy, 160 Gig yesterday.
I've been a windows user for the last 22 years.
With the idea of maximizing the HD space, what can be done to the OS X installation to free up some disk space?
Are there specific directories that can be deleted after an installation (Windows Temp directories as an example) or obscure libraries that are most likely not needed?
Click to expand...

try monolingual (deletes language files). It will save you a couple gigs.
 
Be careful with Monolingual though and make sure you read through the instructions and don't get rid of the PPC instructions or Rosetta won't run those apps.

You can also get rid of around a GB of printer drivers.

And if you find that you don't use iDVD or Garageband, removing those apps and their themes/loops from Application Support will get you another 2-3GB. But that can be done at any point so you might want to leave them there until you get lower on disk space.
 
You can safely ditch the Asian languages fonts, too, unless of course you need them. I usually leave out all those and all the printer drivers when Customizing the installation, and just d/l the specific and latest drivers later.
 
As a side question: is there something similar to CCleaner for OS X or is it even necessary?
Exciting to think I've got to learn all the tricks to a new OS after 20 years on Windows!
 
I'm a switcher like you... Try OnyX, it's a free utility, and from many reviews and my experience, it works great. Since I'm new to the OS I keep messing around a lot, and suddenly wake up with files missing and optinos not there. I run OnyX, restart, and everything is back to normal. It has a very similar function to CCleaner, except there is no registry in OSX but it fixes perimissions, cleans cashes, checks indexes and stuff...

Also, for space saving, try a program from Omni (great developer) called Omni DiskSweeper. It is free to show you where the files are. $15 dollars will give you a delete button. I just browse to where the files are and delete them manually. It will show where your HD space is wasted...

Another thing I was worried initially was fragmentation. I downloaded a trial program to check fragmentation, and compared to my XP, even after heavily downloading hundreds of programs and deleting them within minutes (got to try and figure out what does the mac give me, you know), FRAGMENTATION was minimal if any...

I want to do a clean install though to remove all the options from OS X I do not need, but I am gonna wait till the spring when Leopard is gonna come. For now, I have plenty of space...
 
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