How to Cleanup System and Library Folders?

Any body knows how to clean up this 2 folders? my ROOT System folder is 2.38GB, ROOT Library folder is 10.43GB and USER library is 6.35GB. I think they contains a lot of unwanted files and folders. any software i can use or methods?
thanks.

I'm rather surprised by the size of your System folder--it's about twice the size of mine. The /Library folder sounds about right, if you installed iLife06, including all the sound files for GarageBand and the various Themes for iDVD. Your home Library folder also sounds rather large. The easiest way to find out what is going on is to put a folder into List view. Then go to View->Show View Options and make sure there is a check mark in the button for Size, and also that Calculate all sizes is checked at the bottom. Now click on the Size column header in the open Finder window for the folder. You'll see what's using all the space. For instance, in my home ~/Library folder the biggest item is the Caches folder, at 840MBs. If I click the disclosure triangle of the Caches folder I see that the QuickTime sub-folder has 400MBs of junk. GoogleEarth has 275MBs, but I would rather not have to re-download anything from there, as it isn't the speediest server in the world, so I won't toss it.
If you never use GarageBand it would be fine to toss its files out of your /Library folder. There isn't really a program that can do all this for you. Only you can determine what things you need/want and what you don't. And I would be VERY cautious about anything in the /System folder. If you have added custom screensavers, as I have done, of course you could toss them, but not much else--although I'm really curious about the source of the extra GB you have that I don't.
The best candidates for removal are the large folders in Application Support and the Audio folder with files for applications you do not use, plus the Printer folder with stuff for printers you do not have and don't plan to buy.
You should also get yourself a backup drive and clone your startup drive to it, make sure you can boot from the clone, and then do your housekeeping chores. That way if you want anything back, you can get it. Not to mention being able to boot the computer just in case you accidently toss something you shouldn't...
Francine
Francine
Schwieder

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Message was edited by: V.K.

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How to Cleanup System and Library Folders?

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