how to minimise os x install?

[maclove]

im installing mac os x on my macbook. i need to absolutely minimise it to the bare essentials.. how can i go about this (do i have options in the install or will i have to do it afterwards) and how much space can i expect the OS to consume if i do my best? currently its taking 25gb and when i reinstall i want to get it down to about a tenth of that. please help me

regards respect and many thanks,

sarah

 

[dartzorichalcos]

There is options in the install procedure which let you select which languages, applications and printer drivers you want to install. Just uncheck all of the stuff you are not going to use and you will save a couple of GB.

 

[devilot]

There is options in the install procedure which let you select which languages, applications and printer drivers you want to install. Just uncheck all of the stuff you are not going to use and you will save a couple of GB.

To elaborate; when you choose to re-install, select the third option, "Erase and install" which will then have a button giving you more options to customize the install.

There you can deselect, as dartzorichalcos mentions, unnecessary printer drivers, languages, and even apps (for example, I chose not to install iPhoto, Garageband, iMovie, iDVD, iWork, etc.). Note: Garageband's extra sound loops and such could save you close to 1-2GBs, I believe.

 

[SmurfBoxMasta]

Also, since you have a macbook, you can strip out the PPC code from all universal apps, as well as the other things mentioned already, but I seriously doubt you will ever see a 2.5GB OS X/86 install nowadays......

 

[Dimwhit]

There's also an app that will remove all the other language files from your installation. It can recover a decent amount of hard drive space. Anyone remember the name of it? It's worth running after the install is complete.

 

[dartzorichalcos]

There's also an app that will remove all the other language files from your installation. It can recover a decent amount of hard drive space. Anyone remember the name of it? It's worth running after the install is complete.

The application is called Monolingual. It can remove languages and architectures if you choose to. If you have an Intel mac, you can choose to remove all the PPC code from applications and system. If you have a PPC mac, you can choose to remove all of the Intel code from applications.

 

[devilot]

I disagree. I don't think it's worth running the risk of the potential damage Monolingual can inflict on an Intel machine. Search a bit, a ton of folks end up having to re-install because they delete the PPC architectures and those are necessary for Rosetta to run. And honestly? There are still a few apps and such that require Rosetta and will be for quite some time.

 

[Cromulent]

Also, since you have a macbook, you can strip out the PPC code from all universal apps, as well as the other things mentioned already, but I seriously doubt you will ever see a 2.5GB OS X/86 install nowadays......

You can get it down to 3.9GBs or so if I remember correctly. Maybe a little less. Half the stuff is unnecessary.