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What applications can I delete to free more HD space?

R

Riverdales27

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Nov 4, 2006
11
0
my macbook i got really only has 40gb of free space since osx uses up 15.6 of the 55.6 hd space.

i really don't use any of the applications that came with my macbook and want to free up more space. only one i find useful is the dictionary for college.

also if i delete an application i just move the icon to the trash can and it deletes everything right? or are there things in the library folder i have to delete also?
 
Support files for GarageBand and iDVD (loops and themes) take up lots of space. Also, printer drivers and foreign language support can take up several GB of space...use Delocalizer to get rid of languages.

Use a program like WhatSize or OmniDiskSweeper to find those large folders of GarageBand and iDVD things that you can delete.
 
Monolingual will get rid of the extra languages you don't use. You can also get rid of Garageband, iDVD and iMovie, but the themes are held elsewhere, so a search in Finder will be needed to get them, and it is these that take up the massive space.
iPhoto is inefficient in usage of space (my Pictures folder is about twice the size of the image files in it), so exporting your pics to another folder, deleting the iPhoto Library and reimporting can help. iPhoto Buddy is useful for setting up Libraries to store photos you want to store on an external HD or a DVD RW.
If you get rid of the printer drivers, it saves a load of space

You might be best with a reinstall, and customise the reinstall as you go through. Back up any files before you do this though.

I have 12 Gigs of files (besides applications) on my MacBook and I still have 31 Gigs left. That's without taking iMovie or iDVD off (about 4-5 Gigs between them I think, so you can save a lot of space.

Stripping it dwn to a bare minimum you should be able to fit it into about 4-5 Gigs. I gather it can be done in 2 gigs, but that might be a tad ambitious.
 
I'm going to add my standard warning regarding Monolingual. It's a great program for deleting languages, but the default settings will completely destroy Rosetta (preventing you from opening Office or Adobe apps), with the only recovery being an Archive and Install.

If you choose to use Monolingual, uncheck the options in the Architectures tab in order to prevent it from borking your system. They mention it in their FAQ, but IMO they don't do nearly enough to prevent people from screwing up their system.
 
I've got a PowerBook with a 60 GB drive, so I'm in the same situation. You'd be surprised about how deleting an application now will cause you to scream 4 months down the road when you find that you really need it.

I've got between 6 and 7 GB free at any time, though my photographs are taking up most of the space. I've moved what I can to an external drive from time to time but I end up with no more than 12 GB free.

The iLife applications are usually safe to remove. GarageBand and its data files certainly take a lot of space--3.2 GB, I believe I saved. I have deleted the Lexmark printer-related files as I won't have a need for them but they didn't save much space.
 
do I just move the application folder to the trash can and it'll delete all those?
 
bousozoku said:
I've got a PowerBook with a 60 GB drive, so I'm in the same situation. You'd be surprised about how deleting an application now will cause you to scream 4 months down the road when you find that you really need it.

I've got between 6 and 7 GB free at any time, though my photographs are taking up most of the space. I've moved what I can to an external drive from time to time but I end up with no more than 12 GB free.

The iLife applications are usually safe to remove. GarageBand and its data files certainly take a lot of space--3.2 GB, I believe I saved. I have deleted the Lexmark printer-related files as I won't have a need for them but they didn't save much space.
Click to expand...

how do i delete the data files? and where do i find them?
 
Riverdales27 said:
do I just move the application folder to the trash can and it'll delete all those?
Click to expand...

Sure.

It'll also delete all the applications installed on your Mac and won't get rid of the GarageBand loops and iDVD themes.

The Applications folder doesn't actually take up that much space. On my iMac, it's 4 GB. Most of the space is taken up by such things as loops and themes.
 
what i meant was do i just move the icon in the application folder to the trash and it'll delete all the things affiliated with the icon? if not how do i know where to look and which one to delete. for the things that are affiliated with it that i can delete it.
 
No, you need to track down the support files separately. Read my original post in this thread for some apps that will help you find them, wherever they reside.
 
You may want to try AppZapper. You can drag an app into it's window, and it will provide a list of associated files to that app that you can check/uncheck to delete.

When you delete an app, say, garage band for instance, all your doing is deleting the app itself. None of the preferences, media files or other associated files.

Appzapper finds all of those files and will delete them.

As others have said though, using monolingual will possible destroy rosetta, and some apps you think you don't need, but you really do.

I would suggest staying away from anything in the Applications>Utilities folder. Apps you may consider are Garageband, iMovie/iDVD/iWeb and their associated files. Everything else I would leave put.
 
Onizuka said:
You may want to try AppZapper. You can drag an app into it's window, and it will provide a list of associated files to that app that you can check/uncheck to delete.

When you delete an app, say, garage band for instance, all your doing is deleting the app itself. None of the preferences, media files or other associated files.

Appzapper finds all of those files and will delete them.
Click to expand...

FYI, AppZapper is imperfect at this. Dragging GarageBand to AppZapper won't delete the loops, which are what takes up the space.
 
Onizuka said:
Really? I figured it did. Well, that's not worth the shareware fee exactly, then, is it? ;)
Click to expand...

I got it for free when it was on macZOT...it works really well for smaller apps with a few preference files, but it's not good for large Apple apps with support files everywhere. It finds a lot of stuff, but not everything...I'm not sure why, unless it thinks you might want some of those support files for other reasons.
 
a big thanks to the person recommending omni disk sweeper... got a trial license and cleaned up 7 Gb of stuff lying around. Gargageband and iWork are the biggest hoggers of space.

iWork took up 1.2 Gb just for the resources... Garageband came in second place with Apple loops hiding in the Application Support directories.

Cheers!
 
Riverdales27 said:
how do i delete the data files? and where do i find them?
Click to expand...

Spotlight can help you search for anything. Type GarageBand and you'll see a number of related files, similar to what I've done searching for iPhoto here. Some of the little applications do something similar. Clicking on Show All will give you a window where you can find the stuff fairly easily within your user area a.k.a. Home.

Dragging anything to the Trash and emptying the Trash will delete it.
 

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There are a few threads on this same topic. I know because i started one a few months back when i first got my macbook. I was amazed at how much space was being taken up on my hard drive. Currently im dual booting, with Linux, trying so i needed that extra space. The only thing i didn't take off was the printer drivers. I thought it might be best to be able to plug into almost every printer and be able to print my work out. I kept iphoto but i got rid of idvd, imovie and garage band and all the themes, loops and sound effects. If you check out whatsize, that little app will show you how much space all of these programs are taking up and you cant delete these programs or files right within that app.

I was just wondering has anybody know why mac apps seem to take up much more space than windows or linux apps? I was just curious.
 
thugpoet22 said:
...
I was just wondering has anybody know why mac apps seem to take up much more space than windows or linux apps? I was just curious.
Click to expand...

There are a lot of reasons that could be claimed:

  • More comprehensive applications
  • Poor compiler
  • Developers concerned more with proper operation than smallest code
  • Universal Binary applications, which support both PowerPC and Intel processors
  • Developers re-inventing the wheel instead of taking advantage of what the operating system offers

Personally, I believe it has to do with applications being a lot deeper on Mac OS X and doing a lot of little things that you have to do for yourself. I see a lot of Windows applications I've used over the years as being thrown together by developers who had no idea how to design for ease of use. Applications created with an art department or design team always seem to work and look better. (Don't ask what I think about most Linux-based applications.)
 
well i did a lot today with my macbook. first i formated it, but than it didn't remove the files i had, i read the instructions and it said to go to options to erase everything and to install new osx. so i formated for the 3rd time. than i got boot camp to see if i can run phantasy star universe for pc. well i installed windows xp, than phantasy star universe but it wasn't working it exits me out when i go to enter story mode. and the wireless doesn't even work even though i got a driver. so i took bootcamp out and the partition and i got left with 38gb of free space. than i decided to delete all the applications i don't use and the ones affiliated with it and cleared up 12-13gb of space and now i have 50.25gb of free space out of 55.6. i feel good. i think i'll stick to osx on laptops until bootcamp is finished with beta testing. i only tried it because i wanted phantasy star universe on my laptop to play at school, i guess i'll be playing that on a desktop.
 
I just got rid of Garage Band from my 12" PB as I don't need that program on this unit (I kept it on my MBP). Those extra themes/loops in Garage Band takes up quite a bit of storage (like 3 to 4 GB). The progam itself is not big; but it keeps such a large file in Library (application support) and Audio file. Spotlight came in handy as it gave me the path where I can find those files.
 
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