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beverson · 03:56 PM

So, after some initial stumbles, I'm liking the new iPhoto a lot. iWeb isn't without its flaws, but it will be handy for posting my photos to .Mac. I haven't really tried iMovie or iDVD. Garage Band seems neat, but since I don't podcast or write music, I will probably use it as little as I did before.

So, what are some recommendations for reclaiming some of my hard drive? I've somehow nearly filled a 100 GB PowerBook drive in just one year (well, over half of it is my iTunes library). So I don't have the space to spare for some of this bloat. I already cleared out the non-English languages from iPhoto, iMovie, iDVD, and Garage Band via the Finder's Get Info box (I figured I'd keep the languages in iWeb just to be safe). I did notice when installing iLife ’06 that there were a lot of sample music files and theme files that got installed, but at the time I just went for the standard install.

In theory, I'd like to have iMovie and iDVD around all the time, even though I rarely use them. Garage Band is cool, but even less important, so I might dump that entirely. I'm looking for suggestions of some of these support files that are truly unnecessary, though. And maybe more importantly, where do they get installed?

CharlesS · Jan 24, 2006, 04:45 PM

If you want to see what support files it puts in, just check out the .pkg receipts for it.

JKT · Jan 24, 2006, 05:48 PM

Garageband consumes GBs of disk space through its support files (the music loops). Unless things have changed between '05 and '06, they will be in the /Library/Application Support/ folder. If you don't use Garageband, I would start with it as a way of regaining disk space. The next big iApp is iDVD with its themes - these also take up a lot of disk space so remove any you aren't going to use (they are in the iDVD package's Resources folder in iDVD '05)

beverson · Jan 24, 2006, 05:50 PM

Originally Posted by JKT

Garageband consumes GBs of disk space through its support files (the music loops). Unless things have changed between '05 and '06, they will be in the /Library/Application Support/ folder. If you don't use Garageband, I would start with it as a way of regaining disk space. The next big iApp is iDVD with its themes - these also take up a lot of disk space so remove any you aren't going to use (in the same app support folder)

Thanks! I couldn't remember where those loops and instruments and themes lived. I guess I would have found them eventually. But now they'll be the first to go.

JKT · Jan 24, 2006, 05:53 PM

Oops, note that I edited the iDVD info while you were responding... I forgot that the themes were in the package contents not the support folder...

beverson · Jan 24, 2006, 06:00 PM

Originally Posted by CharlesS

If you want to see what support files it puts in, just check out the .pkg receipts for it.

I never thought to do that. How does that work? Do I need Pacifier? Or do I just right-click and view contents of the .pkg receipt?

JKT · Jan 24, 2006, 06:32 PM

Go to /Library/Receipts and double click the relevant .pkg file to open it in Installer app. When open, select Show Files from the File menu (or press command-I) to get a listing of all the files installed and where for that particular package.

beverson · Jan 26, 2006, 11:44 AM

Originally Posted by JKT

Go to /Library/Receipts and double click the relevant .pkg file to open it in Installer app. When open, select Show Files from the File menu (or press command-I) to get a listing of all the files installed and where for that particular package.

Sweet. That worked, although I had to be quick with the Show Files command -- if I let the sheet pop down to "run a program to check, blah blah blah," whatever that is, then I couldn't Show Files. And after that sheet popped up, the only thing I eventually could do was quit the Installer, I guess because it was already installed.

So getting rid of Garage Band and all of the related loops and instruments seemed to have given me back several gigs. Woohoo! I think I'll keep the rest of it around for now, but I can see getting rid of some of those iDVD themes eventually, and maybe the new iMovie themes too.

Thanks everyone.

Tomchu · Jan 26, 2006, 12:59 PM

You can also try running Monolingual (check Google). It will remove *all* resource/support files for any languages other than English. When you first start it, make sure you check off all the languages except English (many are unchecked throughout the list).

You can also remove all the keyboard layouts in the next tab over. The default Roman layout is not in the list, so you can safely remove all of them and save about 30 MB.

Tomchu · Jan 26, 2006, 01:00 PM

You can also try running Monolingual (check Google). It will remove *all* resource/support files for any languages other than English. When you first start it, make sure you check off all the languages except English (many are unchecked throughout the list).

You can also remove all the keyboard layouts in the next tab over. The default Roman layout is not in the list, so you can safely remove all of them and save about 30 MB.

Stecchino · Jan 26, 2006, 05:02 PM

Yes, in regards to removing all localization files, I have used and loved Macaroni. It automatically does everything maintenance related completely in the background. You can schedule it to your liking. For me, I have it remove localizations every week. It removed almost 700 MB from a recent install of just iPhoto and iWeb

cambro · Jan 26, 2006, 06:13 PM

Why don't you just remove localization files manually?

Crtl-click on application...
Show package contents...
Resources...
Delete all .lproj folders you don't want.

Most don't add up too much though. When deleting everything accept English you save:

Garage Band, 53.7 MB
iPhoto 50.3 MB
iMovie 34.2 MB
iDVD ~32 MB
iTunes 34.9 MB
*iWeb 520 MB*

TOTAL iLife '06: 715 MB

iWeb is the big localization hog, but that's about it.

Tomchu · Jan 26, 2006, 07:21 PM

Originally Posted by cambro

Why don't you just remove localization files manually?

Crtl-click on application...
Show package contents...
Resources...
Delete all .lproj folders you don't want.

Most don't add up too much though. When deleting everything accept English you save:

Garage Band, 53.7 MB
iPhoto 50.3 MB
iMovie 34.2 MB
iDVD ~32 MB
iTunes 34.9 MB
*iWeb 520 MB*

TOTAL iLife '06: 715 MB

iWeb is the big localization hog, but that's about it.

1. Because it's 10x harder and more time-consuming.

2. Because there is more to localizations than just the .lproj folders in Resources. Every framework, plugin, and help resource inside Resources will have more localization folders. Monolingual will grab them all.