Unwanted applications - waste of space?

cameronryan · May 8, 2007

No matter how much I delete and save to external HD's, it seems the decline of free space catches up faster, and I was just wondering how much space applications take up as I have many in my folder that I don't really use.

Maybe I need to start putting my photos on DVD, or is it CD?

Photos and music files can't take up that much space individually but I have no idea how much space a downloaded application takes up, most of mine came with the MBP.

Thanks,

C

Brown Study · May 8, 2007

cameronryan said:
. . . I have no idea how much space a downloaded application takes up, most of mine came with the MBP.

Open the Applications folder, go under View in the menu bar and switch it to "as List."

Then go under View again to "Show View Options." At the top, click on "This Window Only," and at the bottom, "Calculate all sizes." This will show the sizes of the applications' "icons," that are really folders.

andrebnu · May 8, 2007

Hey man, take a look at this application, it's really cool!! (and it's freeware)

http://www.versiontracker.com/dyn/moreinfo/macosx/21149

WhatSize is a simple tool that allows the user to quickly measure the size in bytes of a given folder and all subfolders and files within it. You would be surprised at how many useless files might be laying around on your hard disks. The files and folders are automatically sorted by size, with the biggest sizes first.

While the app is measuring a folder the user can browse the files within that folder and immediately see the size in bytes. Hidden files, cache files, directories will all show up with their corresponding size. This application is similar to the ancient NeXTSTEP, DarkForest.

Once the measuring of a folder has ended the user can also view the information by filtering for particular file sizes or types. The user can also move unwanted files and folder in the corresponding Trash bin similar to the Finder's Delete button.

cameronryan · May 9, 2007

In the red are the apps which I simply don't use, in the blue are aps which I may use in future or that I am unsure of, the one in purple is an application I downloaded and for whatever reason didn't figure out (probably through lack of time or patience) and in the green are my essentials, the others I have left.

Which ones do I need to think twice about before deleting? By that I mean apps which will be very difficult to retrieve or download or ones which I may find useful at a later date?

Utilities
ImageWell
iWeb - For creating my own website at a later date?
QuickTime Player
Preview
Calculator
OmniOutliner
iCal
Address Book
VLC
imagewell3
Chess
Dashboard
Automator - No idea what this is.
Adobe Photoshop CS
Additional Software
Microsoft AutoUpdate
Mail
Final Cut Pro
iDVD
System Preferences
TextEdit
Safari
iPhoto
LimeWire
Skype
AppleScript
Photo Booth
Sherlock
iMovie HD
iSync
Internet Connect
Final Cut Pro Additional Easy Setups
DVD Player
Font Book
iTunes
Dictionary
iWork '06
Stickies
DVDRegionFree59.exe
iChat
Microsoft Office 2004
Toast Titanium
Yahoo! Messenger
Comic Life
Microsoft Messenger
Installers
Image Capture
GarageBand
SOURCE
LimeWire
LimeWire At Login ???????
COPYING ?????

Kash · May 9, 2007

You can easily get rid of all of the programs in red with the exception of Automator. Though to be honest, you probably won't save much space by getting rid of them.

Of all the programs on that list, the one that will give you back the most amount of space is Garageband. The sample files that go with Garageband can total somewhere around 2-3GB.

You shouldn't have to worry about not being able to get the pre-loaded applications back. There is a little program out there (the name is slipping my mind at the moment) that lets you extract them from your installation discs. So you can get rid of Garageband for now and if you decide to use it later, you can just pull it off your installation discs.

NanoBite · May 9, 2007

These are the apps you say you have no use for ... in total - they weigh in at 242.6Mb. You could extract them from your install dvd at any time using Pacifist.

OmniOutliner, Comic Life & VLC are all 3rd party apps with the first 2 coming bundled with iLife '06 (AFAIK). VLC you can download from the internet and the other two you would use Pacifist to extract them from the OS X DVD/s.

OmniOutliner = 38.8Mb
iCal = 30.9Mb
Address Book = 24.8Mb
VLC = 34.2Mb
Chess = 4.1Mb
Automator = 13.7Mb

Here is a video tutorial on how to use Automator.

Mail = 49Mb
Stickies = 3.6Mb

DVDRegionFree59.exe - This is a Windows download, hence the .exe extension ... Safe to delete this file.

iChat = 25Mb
Comic Life = 18.5Mb

Mail.app is one app I would hesitate to trash. It's a good email client and you haven't said which email client you are using. Also make sure you really don't use AddressBook.app before you trash that...

Basically, it all depends on your Hard Drive capacity ... you'll gain 242Mb and whether or not this is a substantial gain is your choice.

cameronryan · May 9, 2007

Garageband I will definately use if I move back to the UK and get my Yamaha keyboard out of storage (the second most expensive thing I've evr bought after MBP!) - I guess I could drag it onto an external HD?

I'll take the advice regarding Mail, though I never had much luck with my Apple mail and to get an account on this here forum the Chinese Apple sales rep, Ryan, had to open this account for me - hence my username.

Comic Life I only ever wanted for adding thought/speech bubbles to photos but Imagewell can do that.

Kash · May 9, 2007

No point in wasting space on your external drive. Like Pulse pointed out, you can use Pacifist to pull Garageband off your installation discs, so you can safely throw it out and reclaim 2-3GB of space.

I would suggest using a program like AppDelete to get rid of Garageband. It'll save you the trouble of looking for the sample files manually

Simbad54 · May 9, 2007

Disk Inventory X.app is useful for seeing at a glance in a very visual graphical way, whats eating into your hard drive space.
S

NanoBite · May 9, 2007

cameronryan said:
Garageband - I guess I could drag it onto an external HD?

I don't know if that's possible or even a wise move, cam ... IMHO, when you decide you want to play with GarageBand, just extract it from your install DVDs using Pacifist.