Remove unnecessary files on disk

I keep getting messages to make more room on disk, but cannot firgure out how to do that

First, see if you have a lot of stuff you don't know about. See Where did my Disk Space go?
If that doesn't help, you need to find things you don't need, delete them, and empty the trash.
If you need everything, "archive" some large/old stuff to DVDs/CDs, then delete them, to make some space quickly. If you wait very long, your Mac will start getting very cranky, and you may lose some data.
Then consider getting a larger internal HD, or an external you can "offload" some of your large stuff. Photos and Music are good candidates, if you have a lot of them.

Similar Messages

What is a good utility for removing unnecessary files and freeing up space on a MB disk?

Does anyone have a recommendation for a utility to free-up storage on the MBP HDD by listing files that are duplicates, temporary, or that are no longer required by the current configuration?

Good software, and good suggestion.
You may find, however, that removing dupiicate and unnecessary files reaches a point of diminishing returns. The average user will reclaim only a few gigs of extra space, at best. '
Your best strategy will be to aggressively delete or archive space consuming media files; a complementary approach woud be to increase your HD space by either getting a bigger HD, or investing in an extra drive. Prices are very good, and several manufacterers offer reliable devices. I have three, which may also serve as backup devices.
Post in this thread if have additional questions!

Bug? iTunes 10 doesn't remove files from Disk sometimes

Hi all.
I think i figured out a bug in iTunes (10).
Sometimes, when i select a file from library and press cmd+backspace to delete a file from disk to put it in trash, iTunes won't put the selected file into the Trash. Sometimes it does, sometimes it doesnt. Its going to be removed in the Library but its still on Filesystem so i can add it once again, and try it 2-3 times till its finally gets deleted.
Any ideas?!
EDIT:
found another thread with same problem
http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?messageID=12530336&#12530336
Message was edited by: koDiacc
Message was edited by: koDiacc

OK ... help myself with asking a friend ...
Search for a few (approx. 20) files manually then iTunes found the rest itself!

Suddenly 3mb layered file saves as 230mb file on disk?

all the sudden i'm seeing that when i'm working on smallish layered psd files, they're saving on my disk at huge sizes. for example, small layered file in p'shop says the doc is 3.09M/27.1M but when it's saved it's 230M. file has 2 layers with one alpha channel and one layer mask.
why is this happening? nothing has changed as far as i know.
thanks!
mary
Pshop CS3
mac os 10.5.4
quad intel mac with 4 GB ram

I believe the "doc size" shows the size of a flat uncompressed image (flat/layered). However it doesn't seem to take into account smart objects etc. It's not the actual file size you will get when saving but should give you a hint of how heavy your file is.
PSD with layers etc. will always be quite large. You can compress them to save some space, flatten/remove unnecessary layers/channels, use solid color layers instead of layers filled with color and so on...
Also you can go to preferences and tell it to ask you about "maximize compatibility" for PSD files. This feature saves a flattened copy of your image with your file (as well as some additional info for backward compatibility). I recommend leaving it on but if you don't need it and size is critical, feel free to turn it off.

What's the best way to removed unwanted files?

I have an iMac G4 running OS X 10.4.11 with 1GB of DDR SDRAM. I'm wondering what's the best way to remove unwanted files from the RAM, if it's even possible. There are apps and other files I no longer need. If I can dump the unused files will it help the computer run a little faster? Can I eliminate the unwanted files some how by myself or do I need a program that does it? Thanks

bad dad wrote:
I have an iMac G4 running OS X 10.4.11 with 1GB of DDR SDRAM. I'm wondering what's the best way to remove unwanted files from the RAM, if it's even possible. There are apps and other files I no longer need. If I can dump the unused files will it help the computer run a little faster? Can I eliminate the unwanted files some how by myself or do I need a program that does it? Thanks
Applications are stored perminately on the harddrive [ Macintosh HD ]. When applications are running that is when they appear in a window, they take up RAM. You see your running applications by using activity monitor:
Macintosh-HD -> Applications -> Utilities -> Activity Monitor
Application when they are not running, they do not take up RAM. You will not see any performance improvement when you delete an application from your Harddrive. [ unless you have filled up your harddrive ]
Best to have greater than 2gig of free space on your Harddrive. Many posters to these forums state that you need much more free space: 5 gig to 10 gig or 10 percent of you hd size.
Most applications do not take up much space on the Harddrive. I copy my unused application to a folder named additional applications.
(0)
Be careful when deleting files. A lot of people have trashed their system when deleting things. Place things in trash. Reboot & run your applications. Empty trash.
Go after large files that you have created & know what they are. Do not delete small files that are in a folder you do not know what the folder is for. Anything that is less than a megabyte is a small file these days.
(1)
Run
OmniDiskSweeper
"The simple, fast way to save disk space"
OmniDiskSweeper is now free!
http://www.omnigroup.com/applications/omnidisksweeper/download/
This will give you a list of files and folders sorted by size. Go after things you know that are big.
(2)
This will save you a gig of space.
Monolingual is a program for removing unnecessary language resources from Mac OS X,in order to reclaim several hundred megabytes of disk space. It requires at least Mac OS X 10.3.9 (Panther) and also works on Mac OS X 10.4 (Tiger). It worked for me on 10.4
http://monolingual.sourceforge.net/
A detailed write-up on how to use Monolingual:
http://www.jklstudios.com/misc/monolingual.html
(3)
These pages have some hints on freeing up space:
http://thexlab.com/faqs/freeingspace.html
http://www.macmaps.com/diskfull.html
(4)
Buy an external firewire harddrive.
(5)
Buy a flash card.

I keep getting blue screen and error message to remove this file from system. spooldr.sys

HP Officejet 4500 Wireless All-in-One Printer - G510n    w/operating system     Windows XP Professional
I installed the printer in February and the disk did not finalize the setup process. I went online and
down loaded the drivers and software that was offered from the HP website.
The printer works, but as the months have gone along, I keep getting updates for the printer and
the system needs to reboot and it does automatically.
Now I am getting a blue screen with a critical dump error message. HP error reporting keeps sending
the same message back to restore to earlier date before the updates. That worked for awhile. Now
HP Error system says that malware has corrupted and needs to remove system file     spooldr.sys
Is this in your driver software. Spooldr is the system that caches pages of data for printing in chronological
order....
Can I uninstall my software and drivers and change to the plain & simple, print and scan to prevent the
spool driver from loading to my system?

Thank you for your input. But, It is amazing that you can tell me that I was infected with rootkit.
Without information as to how to fix, your information is after the fact and useless.
I used the Safety Scanner provided to me by HP.  A full scan didn't detect any Malware in any files on my system. But the last screen dump provided the information that   spooldr.sys was corrupted and needed
to be removed.
Coming into HP Form, I did read on the HP website that my system Windows XP Professional was not listed
and noted that the software may have not been just what I needed. This was the reason for the question
about uninstalling and reinstalling less of the program. I really don't need my printer to print backward and
that is all I see that it is doing that other printers don't.
Besides, Kudos goes to the person from HP who sent the email, suggesting I used the HP Update software and drives recommended for my computer system. Computer, printer is working, back to normal and hasn't taken a dump since, I uploaded software and drives for Windows XP Professional.

Mac creates a save every hour, quickly filling the external drive. The "delete unnecessary files in Trash" does not work.

How to make the Mac do save at certain intervals?
Why would I want five saves the day?
I try to delete unnecessary files to free up space.
Trash on the Mac has become very slow, the removal process was take hours.
Then the process of removing all stops.
Why files are not removed through the trash?
What could be causing the removal process?

TimeMachine is designed to back up every hour. It saves only the files that have changed during the hour. After 24 hours TimeMachine culls the (up to) 24 backups to make a single backup for the day. After 30 days it takes the 7 oldest day backups and culls them into a single week backup.
You should never manually touch files in the TimeMachine backup. It doesn't like that. The best practice for TimeMachine is to devote an external drive to TimeMachine and nothing else. Because TM backups are incremental, it is recommended that your TM hard drive be 2-4 times larger than the amount of drive space your computer is using. In other words, if your 1TB hard drive is 1/4 full (250GB in use) you should have a TM drive between 500GB and 1TB depending on how much more data you expect to add to your drive and how long you wish to keep old back files.
Having said all this, you might prefer using some other program for backups. CarbonCopyCloner and ChronoSync are two programs you might want to look at.

How do I remove backup files from desktop

I am having difficulty removing backup files that are locked from my desktop that I transfered from a backup external hard drive. It starts to delete but whern it gets to 0 it rewrites the file. this happens evn after I answer "remove all locked files".
Thank you
John Roberts

I was able to delete the backup.backup files once I :
1. ran disk repair
2. disconnected the external drive and restarted.
Also the 1password.backup files
( Other discussions helped greatly.)
Thank you,
John5

ITunes 12 'error occurred converting the file the disk is not available'

Hi,
looking for some advice on an issue with importing disks into iTunes 12.0.01.26 on Windows 7
I import a CD and the first song generally imports successfully
However I noticed the second song (or sometimes the fourth) fails with the following :
'error occurred converting the file the disk is not available'
I can manually untick the first songs that have imported successfully and re-import the remainder.
Generally another song will import and the error will reoccur. I can continue this laborious process until the CD is fully imported
I can rip CD's using Windows Media Player without any issue so it doesn't look like an optical drive issue
I have checked under Preferences - Advanced and the iTunes media folder is apparent. I'm using an external drive for my iTunes Library.
Attempts to Resolve
I tested by setting up an iTunes library under my C:\ and the issue reoccurs.
I've tried repairing the installation but it made no difference.
I tried removing the iTunesPreferences.plist file - no difference
I have switched off (and back on) the automatic prompt to import CD's
Turned off and on error checking when importing CD's
I have noticed the prompt to import the CD can pop up at least twice, often again when an import is underway
I would be grateful for any suggestions on remedial steps I could take!
Many Thanks
Paul

Hey Paul_Ramone,
Sorry to hear you are having these issues with iTunes on your Windows machine. If you continue having issues importing tracks from CDs into iTunes (after the first track), you may find the information and troubleshooting steps outlined in the following articles helpful:
iTunes 12 for Windows: Import songs from CDs (troubleshooting steps toward the bottom)
iTunes for Windows: iTunes Diagnostics, CD/DVD Drive Tests - Apple Support
Cheers,
- Brenden

Is there a software which can remove unused files leftover from removed applications?

Hi there guys, as the title says... Does anyone know of anything, or anyway that I can do this easily? I notice that I do have files left here and there from software which I have long since removed... Any easy way to remove these files..?

Uninstalling Software: The Basics
Most OS X applications are completely self-contained "packages" that can be uninstalled by simply dragging the application to the Trash. Applications may create preference files that are stored in the /Home/Library/Preferences/ folder. Although they do nothing once you delete the associated application, they do take up some disk space. If you want you can look for them in the above location and delete them, too.
Some applications may install an uninstaller program that can be used to remove the application. In some cases the uninstaller may be part of the application's installer, and is invoked by clicking on a Customize button that will appear during the install process.
Some applications may install components in the /Home/Library/Applications Support/ folder. You can also check there to see if the application has created a folder. You can also delete the folder that's in the Applications Support folder. Again, they don't do anything but take up disk space once the application is trashed.
Some applications may install a startupitem or a Log In item. Startupitems are usually installed in the /Library/StartupItems/ folder and less often in the /Home/Library/StartupItems/ folder. Log In Items are set in the Accounts preferences. Open System Preferences, click on the Accounts icon, then click on the LogIn Items tab. Locate the item in the list for the application you want to remove and click on the "-" button to delete it from the list.
Some software use startup daemons or agents that are a new feature of the OS. Look for them in /Library/LaunchAgents/ and /Library/LaunchDaemons/ or in /Home/Library/LaunchAgents/.
If an application installs any other files the best way to track them down is to do a Finder search using the application name or the developer name as the search term. Unfortunately Spotlight will not look in certain folders by default. You can modify Spotlight's behavior or use a third-party search utility, EasyFind, instead.
Some applications install a receipt in the /Library/Receipts/ folder. Usually with the same name as the program or the developer. The item generally has a ".pkg" extension. Be sure you also delete this item as some programs use it to determine if it's already installed.
There are many utilities that can uninstall applications. Here is a selection:
    1. AppZapper
    2. AppDelete
    3. Automaton
    4. Hazel
    5. AppCleaner
    6. CleanApp
    7. iTrash
    8. Amnesia
    9. Uninstaller
10. Spring Cleaning
For more information visit The XLab FAQs and read the FAQ on removing software.

How do I delete unnecessary files

Mac OS X, V 10.6.8, processor; 2.66 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo; Memory 2 GB 1067 MHz DDR3
I would like to clean up my computer of unnecessary files and backups, i.e. email, printers, logs, caches.

You should never, EVER let a computer hard drive get completely full, EVER!
With Macs and OS X, you shouldn't let the hard drive get below 15 GBs or less of free data space.
If it does, it's time for some hard drive housecleaning.
Follow some of my tips for cleaning out, deleting and archiving data from your Mac's internal hard drive.
Have you emptied your Mac's Trash icon in the Dock?
If you use iPhoto or Aperture, both have its own trash that needs to be emptied, also.
If you store images in other locations other than iPhoto, then you will have to weed through these to determine what to archive and what to delete.
If you are an iMovie/ Final Cut user, both apps have their own individual Trash location that needs to be emptied, too!
If you use Apple Mail app, Apple Mail also has its own trash area that needs to be emptied, too!
Delete any old or no longer needed emails and/or archive to disc, flash drives or external hard drive, older emails you want to save.
Look through your other Mailboxes and other Mail categories to see If there is other mail you can archive and/or delete.
STAY AWAY FROM DELETING ANY FILES FROM OS X SYSTEM FOLDER!
Look through your Documents folder and delete any type of old useless type files like "Read Me" type files.
Again, archive to disc, flash drives, ext. hard drives or delete any old documents you no longer use or immediately need.
Look in your Applications folder, if you have applications you haven't used in a long time, if the app doesn't have a dedicated uninstaller, then you can simply drag it into the OS X Trash icon. IF the application has an uninstaller app, then use it to completely delete the app from your Mac.
To find other large files, download an app called Omni Disk Sweeper.
http://www.omnigroup.com/more
Also, Find Any File
http://apps.tempel.org/FindAnyFile/
Download an app called OnyX for your version of OS X.
http://www.titanium.free.fr/downloadonyx.php
When you install and launch it, let it do its initial automatic tests, then go to the cleaning and maintenance tabs and run the maintenance tabs that let OnyX clean out all web browser cache files, web browser histories, system cache files, delete old error log files.
Typically, iTunes and iPhoto libraries are the biggest users of HD space.
move these files/data off of your internal drive to the external hard drive and deleted off of the internal hard drive.
If you have any other large folders of personal data or projects, these should be archived or moved, also, to the optical discs, flash drives or external hard drive and then either archived to disc and/or deleted off your internal hard drive.
Moving iTunes library
http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1449
Moving iPhoto library
http://support.apple.com/kb/PH2506
Moving iMovie projects folder
http://support.apple.com/kb/ph2289
Good Luck!

Can't 'Delete Rejected Photos' (since Lightroom 5.6?) - just removes from catalog, not disk

I use Lightroom 5 (64-bit) on Windows. Recently (possibly since the 5.6 upgrade?) I can't delete rejected photos from the catalog. Instead of asking if I want to delete from the disk or just the catalog or cancel, like it used to, it now asks if I want to remove from the catalog or cancel. The files are left on disk. This happens if I Ctrl-Backspace or choose the Photo > Delete Rejected Photos menu.
Anyone else having this problem? Any suggestions please? My daughter borrows my camera so I delete a LOT of pictures - without this option I don't have a quick way to do that.
- cheers, Barney

I had a similar problem, and here is what I think is happening.
It depends on how you are viewing your pictures. If you are viewing a collection, Delete Rejected Photos will only remove them from the collection. There is no prompt to remove the files from the hard drive. Instead, you need to view the entire catalog (All Photographs). This time when you selected Delete Rejected Photos, there is a prompt asking if you want to remove the files completely from hard disk.
I have recently switched from Bridge to Lightroom, and I'm used to organizing and sorting my photos by directory. This is another adjustment I need to make in my normal workflow.

Solaris 10 - /var unnecessary files

Hello,
We are facing the following problem in our T2000 server:
Preinstalled Solaris 10, partitioned the disk in 15GB slices and everything was mounted on /. I have allocated my partitions for the Users and our tools but the default partition is almost full. I am afraid that it will stuck soon. The df -hk shows :
Filesystem size used avail capacity Mounted on
/dev/dsk/c0t0d0s0 15G 14G 384M 98% /
What i have noticed is that /var dominates the partition (about 6,7GB). Can you suggest any unnecessary files that i can delete to resolve the problem? I have seen that there are two huge files named X1msgs & X2 msgs in the /var/adm file. What are those? Can i delete them or not?
I know that the best solution is to reformat but i would like to avoid this, if possible. A partition extension can be useful but i have read that growfs cannot work on / partition. What else can i do?
Thank you in advance,
George
Edited by: gthe on Nov 17, 2009 8:05 AM

We have some Sun Solaris machines with VNC installed, set to no authentication (you need to connect in x-windows though). Running an nmap scan with these settings, nmap -sV -T4 -oN scan.nmap 192.168.1.0/24, these servers X1msgs (X2msgs, etc) in /var/adm files begin to grow quickly and end up eating
all space on the drive (even after the scan has been cancelled). The message filling up the logs is:
XserverDesktop: XserverDesktop::wakeupHandler: unable to accept new
connection: Invalid argument (22)
XserverDesktop: XserverDesktop::wakeupHandler: unable to accept new
connection: Invalid argument (22)
XserverDesktop: XserverDesktop::wakeupHandler: unable to accept new
connection: Invalid argument (22)
XserverDesktop: XserverDesktop::wakeupHandler: unable to accept new
connection: Invalid argument (22)
I've noticed this in the past doing Nessus scans, and the option that stopped this was happening was "Open port
recheck" under General plugins. Has anyone on the list seen something similar and do you know why this occurs, and
hopefully how to fix it? I figured this might be a good place to ask...

Remove programs and missing disk space

I'm just switched to Mac a few weeks ago and I got problem when I remove program in my MacBook.
Is that ok when I just sent my program to trash and that's all for removing a program? I saw that's some program such as "Adobe Reader" it has a uninstall dmg file but another do not.
After I remove program, my disk's space still doesn't change so did I remove it? My disk's space's 120Gb but I just have 60Gb left now even I did not add a lot of program, so why's it disappear?
MacBook Intel C2D 2.16 GHz Mac OS X (10.4.10) 30 GB iPod Video (Black)

Dragging a file to the Trash does not delete it from the drive until you empty the Trash.
Uninstalling Software: The Basics
Most OS X applications are completely self-contained "packages" that can be uninstalled by simply dragging the application to the Trash. Most applications create preference files which are stored in the /Home/Library/Preferences/ folder. Although they do nothing once you delete the associated application, they do take up some disk space. If you want you can located them in the above location and delete them, too.
Some applications may install an uninstaller program that can be used to remove the application. In some cases the uninstaller may be part of the application's installer, and is invoked by clicking on a Customize button that will appear during the install process.
Some applications may install components in the /Home/Library/Applications Support/ folder. You can also check there to see if the application has created a folder. You can also delete the folder that's in the Applications Support folder. Again, they don't do anything but take up disk space once the application is trashed.
Some applications may install a startupitem or a Log In item. Startupitems are usually installed in the /Library/StartupItems/ folder and less often in the /Home/Library/StartupItems/ folder. Log In Items are set in the Accounts preferences. Open System Preferences, click on the Accounts icon, then click on the LogIn Items tab. Locate the item in the list for the application you want to remove and click on the "-" button to delete it from the list.
If an application installs any other files the best way to track them down is to do a Finder search using the application name or the developer name as the search term.
There are also several shareware utilities that can uninstall applications:
AppZapper
CleanApp
Yank
SuperPop
Uninstaller
Spring Cleaning
Look for them at www.versiontracker.com or www.mackupdate.com.
For more information visit The XLab FAQs and read the FAQ on removing software.

How do I clean up your mac and remove unwanted files?

Can someone instruct me how to clean my mac and remove unwanted files that slow the mac down?

this forum is about running Windows on a Mac.
Hence, use Disk Cleanup
CCleaner works fine for both Mac and Windows - strongly recommend it for Windows
Uninstall background processes, less is more and you don't need most and definitely not two that are trying to monitor system and disk drives. If you need one setup a system just for weekend maintenance and emergency.
Allow more than adequate free space.

Remove unnecessary files on disk

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