Holy Wasted Disk Space, Batman!

[NSMacGuru]

I admit it - I'm a hoarder. Of digital files, that is. You never know when you might need something, right?

Anyway - I fired up the amazingly useful and free GrandPerspective and went looking for things I could possibly toss.

Among the detritus I found something unexpected... and since some of you may have made use of this feature, it may help you as well to free up some disk space.

Apparently the Screen Saver feature, when you choose the option of using your Photo library to display them on-screen in a pleasing manner, doesn't pull them "live" from the Photos library. It duplicates the darn things, and puts them into "com.apple.iLifeMediaBrowser.ILPhotosTranscodeCache" (inside /User/Library/Containers/)

I haven't used that in a very long time... my screensaver is set to "word of the day", so the content of that cache can be deleted.

How much did I save? 4.45gb

For some reason, it also caches video files.... hence the ginormous size.

 

[Raz0rEdge]

That's an awesome find. I've always used something like Flurry as my screen saver since if I'm in front of my computer, I want to be using it not looking at a pictures from my photo library. Ideally I'd like a blank screen option which I don't seem to find.

 

[pm-r]

...Ideally I'd like a blank screen option which I don't seem to find.

Did Apple remove the Solid Colors option from the Desktop & Screen Saver pref pane???

If so, just grab something similar from the Internet if nothing else.


- Patrick
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[pm-r]

Among the detritus I found something unexpected... and since some of you may have made use of this feature, it may help you as well to free up some disk space.

Interesting find, and I would add some of the unnecessary bloat files that the macOS installs such as unused languages and various unneeded and surplus support files etc.. That can often add up to several GB.

- Patrick
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[MacInWin]

Interesting find, and I would add some of the unnecessary bloat files that the macOS installs such as unused languages and various unneeded and surplus support files etc.. That can often add up to several GB.

- Patrick
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Be careful with that, Patrick. One of the unfortunate things Clean My Mac used to do was to clean out the various language files. Then the user would find that some applications didn't run properly because they expected/needed data that was in those language files. That scenario was one of the big hits against CMM.

 

[Slydude]

Didn't some of those "cleaning programs" make it far too easy to remove fonts that the system needed as part of the interface? Some users may not have known the fonts were needed. All they knew is that they didn't recognize the font family/didn't use them in their documents.

 

[ferrarr]

Did Apple remove the Solid Colors option from the Desktop & Screen Saver pref pane???

No. But Solid Colors are only available in the Desktop Preferences, not available for Screen Saver Preferences.

 

[Rod]

When CMM is run initially on Smart Scan ,after the scan where total data that can be removed is displayed you have the option to Review Details.
In the details list you get a full explanation of what is to be deleted and have the option to untick items you are unsure of or do not want erased. These preferences are saved for future use.

The problem was some users didn't read them. Like all tools CMM has the potential to do harm if not used properly. I'll admit that it could have warnings built in like, "Are you sure you want to delete all language files?"

So the deletion of some files may be unwise for some but not for others. eg. Universal Binaries are of no use to me so I choose to delete them, as for Language Files you get the option to choose the ones you do want to keep and can safely delete the rest. I keep Indonesian because I'm in Indonesia but others may want more. See below;

So now I have the option to remove 3.36GB of stuff I don't want or need but that's just me. Care must be taken to tailor the app to suit your own needs, eg you may want to keep email attachments. I usually do but if I were to choose to delete them all I would save another 4.2GB and you can review these by email account.
I would and have argued in the past that the highly recommended OnyX also has the potential to do harm if you stray too far outside the standard suite of the Maintainence Schedule. eg

Having said that OnyX is free and a much "cleaner" app without all of the unnecessary bells and whistles of CMM, most of which I don't use, like the malware scanner, system optimiser and background "assistant".

The only reason I have CMM at all is because I bought it years ago, before joining these forums and didn't know any better. Updates and new versions have been discounted to current subscribers and my wife likes it so I've kept it.

I've found the Uninstaller is also quite useful as is the Space Lens (a bit like Daisy Disk).
I don't believe it is intrinsically harmful, only if you don't use it correctly. There are a lot of "cleaner" apps out there that are much riskier.
It is expensive for what it does.
It does a lot of stuff you probably don't need, most of which can be done with other free apps.

So, do you need it? Probably not.

 

[MacInWin]

On the topic of screen savers, can I ask "Why?" I haven't used a screen saver since the days of huge monitors with big cathode ray tubes. For those, a screen saver sort of made sense in that they were slow to warm up, and could get an image burned into the screen. So, it made sense to have something different on the screen, preferable something changing.

But, for me at least, there does not seem to be the same need. In fact, on my system(s), I just let the screen go dark after a time. The flat panels come on almost instantly when I wake the Mac, the screen being off consumes less power than on a screensaver.

So, why do people use screensavers today? What is the rationale?

 

[IWT]

What is the rationale?

Amusement. Distraction. Habit. Who knows Jake? Like you, I haven't used a screensaver for about 8+ years.

Harmless, I guess.

Ian

 

[MacInWin]

Not really totally harmless, Ian. It does take more power for the screen to be ON than OFF, and the pixels are being used, which theoretically shortens the life of the screen. Not much and nothing to be seriously concerned about, but not totally harmless.

I suspect it's a habit, something we used to do and still do for no real reason at all.

 

[pm-r]

No. But Solid Colors are only available in the Desktop Preferences, not available for Screen Saver Preferences.

They certainly seem to be available and behave like any other desktop image in my Mavericks 10.9.5 Desktop & Screensaver System Preferences, I gather things work differently with your macOS version.


- Patrick
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[Rod]

I no longer use a screen saver either. Screen goes to sleep after 30min.