Extra Folders Taking Up Needed Space

On my powerbook whem I double click on the Mac HD on the desktop their is a library folder that takes up 10 gb of space . The problem is I already have that folders in my home folder but one of them hase more items than the other one, my question is can I delete one of those folders or do I need them because it seems as if I already have them in my Home folder and I really need that extra 10gb. Please help.

chances are you are going to need something if theres 10gb in there....i would look through it thuroughly before deleting.

I don't think they are copies of each other... More like an alias I believe...

That folder is the System Library, delete it, and you are going to have some serious issues with OS X. It holds most of the important system files.

The library folder in your home folder holds files important to that user, they are different.

CAMERA MAN said:

On my powerbook whem I double click on the Mac HD on the desktop their is a library folder that takes up 10 gb of space . The problem is I already have that folders in my home folder but one of them hase more items than the other one, my question is can I delete one of those folders or do I need them because it seems as if I already have them in my Home folder and I really need that extra 10gb. Please help.

Click to expand...

The first Library you mention is the System one, do not try to delete anything in there without knowing what it is for or you will end up will Apps that no longer work, the second one is your personal Library.

The difference between them is that when you install large Apps like Final Cut Express it places the media you need (Filters, Transitions, Loops etc) into the System Library so that every user can access them whereas when you are running Apps the user Library is used for things that are speciific to your user (like particular filters you may have included in your own projects).

Other Apps do the same so System Library contains plugins for browsers, bits of Open Office or MS Office, Photoshop bits and pieces, GarageBand loops etc etc.

If you have no more use for some of these files, like for example you have deleted MS Office, then you can clear out the files but be very careful. Plugins and helpers in particular are sometimes used my many Apps.

Apple have made an effort to make the file usage pretty obvious, i.e the names of the folder are normally a dead giveaway as to what they are for and which App put them there but some third partys are not so user friendly.

btw, if something says it is a "Framework" or is in a folder named "Frameworks" leave it well alone. These are libraries of code needed by applications, unlike media files if these are not present you could end up with all sorts of strange behaviour from the system.

btw2, if you install something and it askes for the admin password that is a dead giveaway that it is installing things in the System Library.

Amen-Moses

If you need to save some space, you could try getting rid of Garageband (if you don't use it) as its sample files take up a sizable chunk of space (2-3GB). Also, download a program called Monolingual. It'll get rid of languages you don't use, again stripping 2-3GB of occupied space. So doing just that will garner you anywhere from 4-6GB of space.

To clear up some more space, you could try a program that strips legacy code out from various pieces of software. That means if you have an Intel Mac, it'll get rid of the PPC code, essentially slimming down programs by 50%. That could save you some space, though I don't know if it's anything significant.

I also suggest going through your Applications folder and getting rid of any programs you never use as a bunch of them can take up some serious space. You should also get yourself a program called AppDelete (it's free) so that when you delete an application, it'll get rid of all the accompanying Library files. This is very handy for when you get rid of Garageband as it'll save you the trouble of going through the Library folder and finding that sort of stuff yourself.

Ok thanks for the replys, I will just leave them alone. I did all things that kash said about a month ago and I came up to 40gbs with out any editing video on their but I still think I can get more out of it since my mac mini has all the same programs and 80 gb HD space but still has 50 free gb of space left. Any more things I can delete?

u can delete the folders titled "caches"

As Kash said, I regained 35 or 85 (I forget which) megabytes by dropping the hard-drive icon on a freeware app called TrimTheFat. You can download it at verstiontracker or macupdate.

It's probably the one he referred to that removes the unneeded code in universal binaries. I have a G4, so in my case, it yanked all the Intel code.

Once you've started it but before using it, go to the preferences and set it so it deletes the unneeded versions. Otherwise, both versions separate, but each remains on the hard drive.

I didn't set the preferences to delete the junk code and ended up with two applications of each. For instance, I ended up with Firefox and Firefox-U, meaning Firefox Universal, I assume. I trashed all the apps ending in -U, but there were a lot of them.

If you drop the entire drive's icon on TrimTheFat's window, it might take a few minutes to do the job. There's no progress bar, and I thought it had crashed.

narf1899 said:

u can delete the folders titled "caches"

Click to expand...

you can use a program like onyx or mainmenu to easily delete cache contents at will or on a schedule.