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Slim Down OS X Tiger

S

speedemonV12

macrumors 6502
Original poster
Nov 29, 2005
319
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Hey guys, I have a great Macbook Pro, and I love it. But I was wondering if there is a way to slim it down. Of course, most of would say reinstall, and just install the components that you need, but I have a way to much stuff on this computer to take it all off, reinstall, and put it back on.. It would be a pain. But anyway, I got my comptuer from apple, and have been using it just the way it is. But there are a lot of programs that I dont use, and was wondering what the best way to get rid of them, and some of the other things that OS X ships with that I dont need. So that I can slim it down, and get some more space on my HD..
thanks for the help !
 
Honestly I don't know. Apps are self contained bundles for the most part except for some of the more complex ones that deposit files in the system folder too. However you won't gain too much space by deleting them. The bulk of the extra space is taken up by the additional languages and drivers and language fonts and such. The only way I know to delete them is to do a fresh install. I would recommend backing up to an external drive or several DVDs, and doing that.
 
There is a program called molingual that will delete the unnessary languages that you will never use. You can reclaim 2GB or so just from that
 
ya.. garageband is good.. but i dont use it... I was seriously considering backing up to DVD's since i dont have an external.. but i have over 20gb of music and 15gb of video.. so that would take some time.. but it might be my only option... but i do have a ton of setting that I have tweaked and set up in all my programs that i dont want to loose.. is there something that can take program preferences and themes for programs and back them up ?
 
speedemonV12 said:
ya.. garageband is good.. but i dont use it... I was seriously considering backing up to DVD's since i dont have an external.. but i have over 20gb of music and 15gb of video.. so that would take some time.. but it might be my only option... but i do have a ton of setting that I have tweaked and set up in all my programs that i dont want to loose.. is there something that can take program preferences and themes for programs and back them up ?
Click to expand...

You can go into your preferences folder in the system and backup all your .plist files. But I would also make a list of any software you have installed/downloaded and make sure you also backup the dmgs or compressed zips.
 
I regularly move apps onto my iPod so I can still use them... when my HD gets below 100 MB free :eek: It doesn't help that I have modded Unreal Tournament 2004 until it's over 17 GB...

Two space-saving tips:

1. Look in /Library/Logs/Console for all your user accounts. I find some apps (games) make huge log files that it seems harmless to delete.

2. Check out Yasu at http://versiontracker.com - it can do lots of system cleanup (things your computer does eventually anyway, but Yasu makes them happen NOW). It's mainly for fixing problems (it might even be able to do #1 itself--though not for all accounts). But a Yasu+restart can free up space, too, I find. (So can a restart alone sometimes.)

Several times I have let my HD get to 0 bytes free!!! Careless! But my Mac did NOT crash, incredibly. It slowed down until I deleted some stuff. (And once, a file that was trying to save was unable to fit, resulting in some lost Folding@Home :( )
 
clear out the apps folder of apps you don't need/use/want anymore.
if you want to completely anal and get rid of every trace use AppZapper to get the prefs files and anything else that they might leave behind. iDVD and GarageBand both take up a good deal of space. printer drivers that you know you'll never use can be removed, as well as the additional language files
 
I have a lot of small videos that.... well ya .. i guess your right, i dont really need the videos on my HD ... lol... ok.. so I can put all those on DVD... i only have a couple that i will keep on my HD for viewing because I want to be able to use frame by frame, and doing that off a DVD takes a while, and runs slow.. Only problem is, I still have yet to find a video player that will allow me to go frame by frame.. I do a lot of analyzing, and its important to have frame by frame for me.. but currently im dying without it.

Im going to use app zapper to get rid of garageband and idvd, and see what kind of space that free's up for me.. if its not enough, I might just go ahead and do the reinstall completely..

One other thing that I was wondering, If i do reinstall. Should i create 3 partitions: One for OS X, one for windows, and my third to keep music files, and misc. stuff. That way, with misc files going on a sep partition, my operating system should run a little bit faster yes? I have over 20gb of music.
 
Here are my recommendations:

- remove GarageBand, iDVD and iWeb if you do not need them - that should free up around 6 GB right there
- check out /Library/Printers/ - 2 GB of printer drivers that you may or may not need
- use OmniDiskSweeper (not free) or my personal favorite WhatSize (free) to determine what all is taking up room on your HDD and where it is
- use Monolingual to remove the unnecessary language resources from your Mac
- lastly, you could always use AppZapper to ensure that when you uninstall any programs that all those pesky sub-folders, etc. are deleted

And with Monolingual, yes, it can cause problems, but not if you use it properly. If you are using an Intel-based mac, uncheck all the Architectures selections or else Rosetta, among other things, will simply not work. Using it for languages, etc. will cause your Mac (Intel or PPC) no harm.

That should just about do it. :cool:
 
Can i delete garageband and idvd just by trashing them, or should i put them into appzapper to be sure to get rid of all the extras?
 
breakfastcrew said:
do not use monolingual, it tends to screw up os x 8 out of 10 times.
Click to expand...

Untrue... I use it on every Mac I build and deliver, and to date it's not screwed up a single Mac.

The problem is, people don't RTFM when they use it and they tend to strip code from apps that they don't need to fiddle with. THAT screws up a Mac.
 
speedemonV12 said:
Can i delete garageband and idvd just by trashing them, or should i put them into appzapper to be sure to get rid of all the extras?
Click to expand...

I just trashed them and did a spotlite search for all the remaining stuff in the system folders. Appzapper's probably a bit easier though.

I'd really really really suggest buying an external backup drive. They're pretty cheap these days and worth their weight in gold if your internal ever fails. I really don't think I'd be able to sleep at night if all my data wasn't properly backed up.
 
speedemonV12 said:
Can i delete garageband and idvd just by trashing them, or should i put them into appzapper to be sure to get rid of all the extras?
Click to expand...

appzap garageband as i believe there are loops floating around in another location, or at least that used to be the case
 
Ya, I have starting thinking about that... My windows pc crashed, and i lost all my music.. that was a b!tc|-|... I might die if anything happened to this mbp, i just finished building up my music library again!... but anyway.. how long does it take to do a reinstall of OS X ?
 
speedemonV12 said:
Ya, I have starting thinking about that... My windows pc crashed, and i lost all my music.. that was a b!tc|-|... I might die if anything happened to this mbp, i just finished building up my music library again!... but anyway.. how long does it take to do a reinstall of OS X ?
Click to expand...

reinstall of OS X is about an hour max i'd say. you do have the option of doing an archive and install, in which it keeps your user data while re-installing the OS. look into that option. that way you won't have to immediately backup. but i second getting an external for backup. better safe than sorry.
 
Just a heads up ... My Macbook arrived yesterday. The standard OS setup took up a whopping 18 GBs. After a customized install, (no printer drivers, languages, Garageband loops, iWeb, etc.) that came down to 5.1GB.

Not too shabby. :)
 
wow.. you got it all the way down to 5gb!!?!? sick.. what major apps did you leave out? besides garageband and iweb?
 
Since you just bought the computer, I'd suggest doing a reinstall. It will give you a little insight into what components can be controlled / eliminated. (If you worry about losing anything, just make an image of your drive with Carbon Copy Cloner before doing the reinstall). Make sure that you deselect the printer drivers and extra languages. When you reinstall iLife, only select the Apps that you will need. You can always install the other ones later.

There are some freeware apps to clean up your logs and stuff. The ones that I have used are:
Onyx http://www.macupdate.com/info.php/id/11582
MacJanitor http://personalpages.tds.net/~brian_hill/macjanitor.html
Cocktail http://www.maintain.se/cocktail/

Be careful with what you do with these, because it is possible to hose your system.
 
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