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dahcar · Mar 6, 2006, 10:55 PM

I had just under 17gb of used space when I got my MBP. I'm a new to Mac, so I'm not sure what is normal. 17GB just seems a little rediculous to me. Can anyone confirm this?

If it is normal, what can i delete that i don't need? I removed the languages but that was only about 750mb. How much of a pain is it to go without the printer drivers? What other useless things can I get rid of to clear some more space? Any help would be appreciated. Thank you.

Drakino · Mar 7, 2006, 01:39 AM

iLife 06 takes up a lot of space due to themes for iMovie, iDVD, and GarageBand samples. If you have no intention of using these apps, you can remove them. Delete the applications from /Applications/, then delete their theme files from /Library/Application Support/. Each app will have a folder there with themes inside.

You might also want to do a clean reload using the DVD that shipped with the system. During the install, choose custom and you can slim down what gets copied over.

n8236 · Mar 7, 2006, 04:50 AM

Drak, can you give more detail on what exactly iMovie, iDVD, and Garageband does? I have a slight idea that it allows you to make movies and dvds? Thanks for any details.

jbleisure · Mar 7, 2006, 05:43 AM

You can also save a significant amount of space by running DeLocalizer a free app which will delete all the foroegn language support files on yuor HD - Recommended. I don't have the URL to hand but a google or version tracker search will bring it up.

Maflynn · Mar 7, 2006, 05:47 AM

Download the free version of Disk Sweeper to see where the storage is going. This nifty little app sorts your folder/files by how much space the occupy.

My guess is as what others have mentioned. The iLife apps are sucking up the space, specifically garage band.

What a lot of people do is reformat and reinstall OSX on their new computers. They then can customize the install and exclude components like garage band.

I wouldn't complain, instead of getting trial versions of the software, Apple is providing the actual apps, so I think its kind of cool.

Mike

analogika · Mar 7, 2006, 06:28 AM

Originally Posted by n8236

Drak, can you give more detail on what exactly iMovie, iDVD, and Garageband does? I have a slight idea that it allows you to make movies and dvds? Thanks for any details.

iMovie - import, edit, and finalize your own DV cam movies

iDVD - create your own DVDs, complete with animated menus, submenus, etc.

GarageBand - music composition and creation software based on Logic, with extremely effective loops pre-included to make it extremely simple to create songs even if you have absolutely no idea what the hell you're doing.

None of these tools have remotely comparable counterparts in the Windows world in terms of what the complete layman can get done within a few minutes of first looking at the program.

They come for free on every new Mac and are part of the iLife package.

dahcar · Mar 7, 2006, 10:09 AM

Thanks for the help. I don't want to remove any of iLife, though. I haven't gotten around to playing with any of it yet, but i hear great things. Like i said before, i'm new to mac, so i'm like a fat girl in a chocolate factory, i just can't get enough. I'll have to give Clean Sweep a try when i get home this evening.