How much space does OSX take up when they ship you a new macbook?????? Somehow my old one i think I had 53 left out of 80???
Got a tip for us?
Let us know
Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.
Fresh Macbook HD Space????
- Thread starter Cybergypsy
- Start date
- Sort by reaction score
OSX usually takes up just under 2 or 3 gigs or so including the additional iLife and what not software... I could be wrong... but what really kills you is the templates from iWeb, iDVD, and iMovie content and all the extra stuff that comes with the EXTRA apps and try outs... all together you are looking at 10GBs.
To clean up your hard drive in general I recommend the following steps:
- use OmniDiskSweeper (not free) or my personal favorite WhatSize (free) to determine what all is taking up room on your HDD and where it is
- remove GarageBand and iDVD if you do not need them - that should free up around 6 GB right there
- check out /Library/Printers/ - 2 GB of printer drivers that you may or may not need
- use Monolingual to remove the unnecessary language resources from your Mac*. Another option is to use Delocalizer
- lastly, you could always use AppZapper (not free) or uApp (free) to ensure that when you uninstall any programs that all those pesky sub-folders, etc. are deleted
That should just about do it.
* a note about Monolingual. If you are not careful this can seriously screw up your Mac if it is Intel-based. Basically, leave the Architectures settings alone. If you delete G3, G4, G5 then anything which is PPC-based which will try to run under Rosetta, won't. Otherwise, Monolingual is great.
- use OmniDiskSweeper (not free) or my personal favorite WhatSize (free) to determine what all is taking up room on your HDD and where it is
- remove GarageBand and iDVD if you do not need them - that should free up around 6 GB right there
- check out /Library/Printers/ - 2 GB of printer drivers that you may or may not need
- use Monolingual to remove the unnecessary language resources from your Mac*. Another option is to use Delocalizer
- lastly, you could always use AppZapper (not free) or uApp (free) to ensure that when you uninstall any programs that all those pesky sub-folders, etc. are deleted
That should just about do it.
* a note about Monolingual. If you are not careful this can seriously screw up your Mac if it is Intel-based. Basically, leave the Architectures settings alone. If you delete G3, G4, G5 then anything which is PPC-based which will try to run under Rosetta, won't. Otherwise, Monolingual is great.
Regarding the languages, what's good to install with a fresh install?
Last time I installed 10.4, for some unknown reason I had it install every language. Realistically, maybe I should at most just do like English, Japanese, Spanish, French, German, so that web pages render right?
Last time I installed 10.4, for some unknown reason I had it install every language. Realistically, maybe I should at most just do like English, Japanese, Spanish, French, German, so that web pages render right?
To clean up your hard drive in general I recommend the following steps:
- use OmniDiskSweeper (not free) or my personal favorite WhatSize (free) to determine what all is taking up room on your HDD and where it is
- remove GarageBand and iDVD if you do not need them - that should free up around 6 GB right there
- check out /Library/Printers/ - 2 GB of printer drivers that you may or may not need
- use Monolingual to remove the unnecessary language resources from your Mac*. Another option is to use Delocalizer
- lastly, you could always use AppZapper (not free) or uApp (free) to ensure that when you uninstall any programs that all those pesky sub-folders, etc. are deleted
That should just about do it.
* a note about Monolingual. If you are not careful this can seriously screw up your Mac if it is Intel-based. Basically, leave the Architectures settings alone. If you delete G3, G4, G5 then anything which is PPC-based which will try to run under Rosetta, won't. Otherwise, Monolingual is great.
I used Monolingual last time and forgot the name.....Thanks for all the info
I only have English on mine actually and have never had any issues with web pages, but perhaps I just haven't been visiting the right ones...
I used Monolingual last time and forgot the name.....Thanks for all the info
No worries, glad to help out - that's what it's all about.
Yes, it would just be a bit of a hassle, that's all...
How big of a hassle? I mean, I probably won't buy a printer for my MacBook because my Windows computer has a printer. Can I just send it to that printer or does it have to be hooked up?
And, say I do buy a printer. Can't I just download the driver for the printer only?
It would just be a matter of downloading the required drivers from the manufacturer's site, making sure they are the correct version, making sure they are the OS X drivers, that sort of thing. If you bought a new printer though all you may need ot do is install the drivers right from the accompanying CD, so that would be even easier!
I have a brand new Mac Book Pro as of today and am enjoying it a lot.
I also wanted to slim down the HD from the outset and was even considering a full clean re-install of OS X but I've been happy with the results of just doing the following. Out of the box, the MBP had about 18-19 GB taken up on the HD, and after these steps, I'm down to 9.5 GB.
Deleted the following from Applications folder (any can easily be reinstalled if you decide later to want them):
iDVD
GarageBand
Aperture - 30 day trialware
iWork '06 (frees up 2 GB right there)
iWeb
Comic Life
Office 2004 for Mac Test Drive
FileMaker 8.5 trial software (under "Installers" folder")
Deleted the following directories from "/Library/Application Support"
GarageBand (2 GB)
iDVD (1.7 GB)
iWork '06
Then I found another 1 GB for GarageBand in "/Library/Audio/Apple Loops/Apple/Apple Loops for GarageBand" . I deleted that too.
All of that took me down to 10.5 GB being used.
Next I went into Terminal and archived the entire directory of /Library/Printers into a gzipped tar file. The archive is about 750 MB and should I get a new printer I have all the drivers right there and it's no hassle to uncompress them. I deleted the Printers directories I didn't need, leaving only hp/ (since I have an HP printer), "PPDs", and "PPD Plugins". The hp/ directory is about 300 MB. So all told, Printer drivers take up 1 GB for me now instead of 2 GB. This is a good trade off in my mind between saving some space and still having the convenience of all print drivers if I should need anything later.
Down to 9.5 GB of space being used after that. I haven't removed unnecessary languages but probably won't bother for only the 100-200 MB that the Monolingual page says will be saved.
Another place to potentially save 2 GB (or however much RAM you have) would be to turn off Safe Sleep. See this article:
http://www.macworld.com/weblogs/macosxhints/2006/10/sleepmode/index.php
I also wanted to slim down the HD from the outset and was even considering a full clean re-install of OS X but I've been happy with the results of just doing the following. Out of the box, the MBP had about 18-19 GB taken up on the HD, and after these steps, I'm down to 9.5 GB.
Deleted the following from Applications folder (any can easily be reinstalled if you decide later to want them):
iDVD
GarageBand
Aperture - 30 day trialware
iWork '06 (frees up 2 GB right there)
iWeb
Comic Life
Office 2004 for Mac Test Drive
FileMaker 8.5 trial software (under "Installers" folder")
Deleted the following directories from "/Library/Application Support"
GarageBand (2 GB)
iDVD (1.7 GB)
iWork '06
Then I found another 1 GB for GarageBand in "/Library/Audio/Apple Loops/Apple/Apple Loops for GarageBand" . I deleted that too.
All of that took me down to 10.5 GB being used.
Next I went into Terminal and archived the entire directory of /Library/Printers into a gzipped tar file. The archive is about 750 MB and should I get a new printer I have all the drivers right there and it's no hassle to uncompress them. I deleted the Printers directories I didn't need, leaving only hp/ (since I have an HP printer), "PPDs", and "PPD Plugins". The hp/ directory is about 300 MB. So all told, Printer drivers take up 1 GB for me now instead of 2 GB. This is a good trade off in my mind between saving some space and still having the convenience of all print drivers if I should need anything later.
Down to 9.5 GB of space being used after that. I haven't removed unnecessary languages but probably won't bother for only the 100-200 MB that the Monolingual page says will be saved.
Another place to potentially save 2 GB (or however much RAM you have) would be to turn off Safe Sleep. See this article:
http://www.macworld.com/weblogs/macosxhints/2006/10/sleepmode/index.php
Now, that is a really good idea! I'll just delete the ones I probably won't use and then zip them up. Nice!
Is there any reason to install ANY of those printer drivers when you set up the OS? I mean since normally you'd just go to the company's web site to grab the drivers?
Or maybe are Apple's included drivers less "bulky" and weird than if you install from say HP.com (I know sometimes drivers will have extra garbage that's running in the background all the time for no reason).
Or maybe are Apple's included drivers less "bulky" and weird than if you install from say HP.com (I know sometimes drivers will have extra garbage that's running in the background all the time for no reason).
It is just for your Mac to work "out of the box".
With HD sizes increasing soo quickly, I don't mind having all of them installed.
I don't see any point on doing this. You have plenty of HD space and it may come handy to have everything installed.