I tried to copy my system folder onto a zip 250 disk, and it didn't fit by a long shot. Any advice to keeping your system folder healthy, lean, and mean?
How big is your system folder?

[This message has been edited by vidimac (edited 08-16-2000).]

[This message has been edited by vidimac (edited 08-16-2000).]

[GORDYmac]

You really should inspect your system folder every few months, you'd be surprised what gets dumped in there. Aladdin's Spring Cleaning does this for you -- though I've never used it.

Possible areas for bloat: Preferences, Control Panels (Disabled), Entensions (Disabled), and in the root folder.

Right now, my System Folder is around 300MB. It could probably be trimmed to about 200MB. I tend to try a lot of shareware INIT's and CDEV's then disable them.

[Cipher13]

My TRIMMED System Folder weighs in a 421.6 MB, with 4,732 items.
However, I have a LOT of stuff in the disabled folders.
Excluding all that stuff, it is 380.1 MB with 4,360 items.

Cipher13

[Gregory]

I used a zip 250 to keep an clean install but up to date system folder 9.0.4+ so it has all the updates and it just fits. Has MRJ 2.2.2, QT 4.1 etc.

An active system folder won't but you can always make an .smi file of your system folder on your hard drive. And just keep a backup of your working system on a backup disk drive. With IDE drives of 15GB going for $120 that makes a fast low cost way to keep everything backed up and updates using a backup program take 5-10 minutes a day.

[mac freak]

My System Folder weighs in at 446.5 MB with 5,877 items. Including disabled stuff (whose size I'm not gonna take the time to calculate).

[wlonh]

my lovely and talented iBook is a svelte 231.1 MB, representing 3,339 items...

my honkin' beige 466MHz G3 minitower has a slender 266.4 MB System Folder representing 3660 items...

bah dah boom pow moof!

Thanks for the posts. I have e-mail notifications but only one visible response in thread.

[mytdave]

There are some other items that will help.

1. Get rid of your Netscape profiles from the Preferences folder. (However, before you do, I suggest creating a new profile, like say, in the Netscape folder where it belongs?!!! If you name the new profile the same as the old one, then you can replace the new one with the old one and keep all your settings.) This will make the cache files from your browser not reside in the System Folder. It's kind of a tricky process, but you'll figure it out. Hint: The Profile Manager program could come in handy!

2. Get all the extensions and control panels and junk that you don't use out of the System Folder, and keep them in a separate folder on your HD (which you can backup separately).

3. If you are running System9, you will be using a HD formatted in extended format, hence it uses a smaller block size. The zip disk is probably formatted in standard format. If you try to copy your 240MB System Folder to the Zip disk, it will suddenly take up 290MB or so. Ahhh... won't fit! Use the zip tools and format the disk in the MacOS extended format. The zip disk will have a bit less free space than the standard format, but you should now be able to fit a complete 240MB System Folder on it.

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[Veerle]

My system folder is 292MB and has 3037 items.

[Misha]

My System Folder is 358 MB and has 3,722 items.

The bulk of that space is consumed by:

Extensions (99.8 MB)

• Voices folder (8.8 MB)
• MRJ Libraries folder (8.1 MB)
• Netopia (6.6 MB)
• QuickTime Extensions (5.5 MB)
• Macromedia (3.8 MB)
• ActiveX Controls (3 MB)
• 185 other ittems between 0 KB and 2 MB

Preferences (90.8 MB)

• Virtual PC 3.0 Preferences (23.6 MB)
• America Online (23.5 MB)
• MS Internet Cache (10 MB)
• Persistent RAM Disk (7.5 MB)
• AOL Instant Messenger (5.4 MB)
• 249 other items between 0 KB and 4 MB