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AeroBar

macrumors 6502a
Original poster
Jan 21, 2009
740
13
Hello,

A couple of months ago I deleted Firefox.

I just did a search for "mozilla" using EasyFind, and found 24 files. Many are in a folder called python2.3.

Is this something related only to Firefox that I can delete or is required by my OS?

Regards
 
Don't delete the ones in the Python folders. Those are part of the Python framework and on every Mac.

What about the "mozilla" files themselves?

They are several - "MozillaCookieJar" and "mozilla_suite".py" with extensions ".py", ".pyo" and ".pyc".

I deleted (and trashed) a couple before I thought it through.
 
What about the "mozilla" files themselves?

They are several - "MozillaCookieJar" and "mozilla_suite".py" with extensions ".py", ".pyo" and ".pyc".

I deleted (and trashed) a couple before I thought it through.
If it helps, I have never installed Firefox and here are the mozilla files I have on Sierra. These are all dated 7/30 and all part of the Python framework. You can just leave them all alone.

Screen Shot 2016-10-02 at 9.24.12 AM.png
 
As a rule of thumb, these are the directories where you should look (~ is your user directory):
~/Library
~/Library/Application Support
~/Library/Caches
~/Library/Containers
~/Library/Group Containers
~/Library/Launch agents
~/Library/Preferences
~/Library/Saved Application State

All of these directories either have sub-directories or files, which are either named after the name of program, the name of the vendor or a bundle ID (e.g. ‘org.mozilla.Firefox’).

Do you think I've done any damage deleting a couple of them?

Did you remove them from the System directory?
 
Do you think I've done any damage deleting a couple of them?
You may have. If you have any apps that depend on that Python framework to run, they might not work. A Google search shows people having trouble with iPhoto not launching after deleting the Python framework.

You could just command-r boot to recovery and reinstall over top of your existing install (without erasing anything) and it would put it back without erasing your data. Backup first just to be safe.
[doublepost=1475428593][/doublepost]
Did you remove them from the System directory?
All those files in my screenshot are in:

Code:
/System/Library/Frameworks/Python.framework
 
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As a rule of thumb, these are the directories where you should look (~ is your user directory):
~/Library
~/Library/Application Support
~/Library/Caches
~/Library/Containers
~/Library/Group Containers
~/Library/Launch agents
~/Library/Preferences
~/Library/Saved Application State

All of these directories either have sub-directories or files, which are either named after the name of program, the name of the vendor or a bundle ID (e.g. ‘org.mozilla.Firefox’).



Did you remove them from the System directory?

I deleted them with EasyFind - I didn't look at anything else
 
In that case, you probably broke something. I recommend rebooting to Recovery (press command + R after the tone) and reinstall OS X from there. It will download the Mavericks installer and repair or replace broken or missing files, while keeping your system configuration and user directory intact.
 
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You may have. If you have any apps that depend on that Python framework to run, they might not work. A Google search shows people having trouble with iPhoto not launching after deleting the Python framework.

You could just command-r boot to recovery and reinstall over top of your existing install (without erasing anything) and it would put it back without erasing your data. Backup first just to be safe.

I didn't delete any file or folder named python - just a three (I think) in a subfolder of a folder called Python.

I just tested iPhoto and it seems fine.

I was going to upgrade to Sierra tomorrow - will that repair any damage that I may have done or should I do the Recovery first?
 
Upgrading will fix it also. Sierra will also prevent you from breaking exactly this in the future, because system directories are completely protected.
 
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