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iLife ’06 bloated

B

beverson

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Jun 18, 2003
26
1
Colorado
So, after some initial stumbles, I'm liking the new iPhoto a lot. iWeb isn't without its flaws, but it will be handy for posting my photos to .Mac. I haven't really tried iMovie or iDVD. Garage Band seems neat, but since I don't podcast or write music, I will probably use it as little as I did before.

So, what are some recommendations for reclaiming some of my hard drive? I've somehow nearly filled a 100 GB PowerBook drive in just one year (well, over half of it is my iTunes library). So I don't have the space to spare for some of this bloat. I already cleared out the non-English languages from iPhoto, iMovie, iDVD, and Garage Band via the Finder's Get Info box (I figured I'd keep the languages in iWeb just to be safe). I did notice when installing iLife ’06 that there were a lot of sample music files and theme files that got installed, but at the time I just went for the standard install.

In theory, I'd like to have iMovie and iDVD around all the time, even though I rarely use them. Garage Band is cool, but even less important, so I might dump that entirely. I'm looking for suggestions of some of these support files that are truly unnecessary, though. And maybe more importantly, where do they get installed?
 
Remove all the language packs you don't need. I have heard that it frees up anywhere between 750 MB and 2 GB for some iLife 06 users.
 
beverson said:
So, after some initial stumbles, I'm liking the new iPhoto a lot. iWeb isn't without its flaws, but it will be handy for posting my photos to .Mac. I haven't really tried iMovie or iDVD. Garage Band seems neat, but since I don't podcast or write music, I will probably use it as little as I did before.

So, what are some recommendations for reclaiming some of my hard drive? I've somehow nearly filled a 100 GB PowerBook drive in just one year (well, over half of it is my iTunes library). So I don't have the space to spare for some of this bloat. I already cleared out the non-English languages from iPhoto, iMovie, iDVD, and Garage Band via the Finder's Get Info box (I figured I'd keep the languages in iWeb just to be safe). I did notice when installing iLife ’06 that there were a lot of sample music files and theme files that got installed, but at the time I just went for the standard install.

In theory, I'd like to have iMovie and iDVD around all the time, even though I rarely use them. Garage Band is cool, but even less important, so I might dump that entirely. I'm looking for suggestions of some of these support files that are truly unnecessary, though. And maybe more importantly, where do they get installed?
Click to expand...

Why not weed out some of your music? Or get an external drive for it. You're not going to save much space getting rid of an app here and there. It's the media that take up space, movies, tunes, photos.
 
dr427 said:
Somewhere I read you can drop at least 2gb by using Delocalizer if you only need English on your machine for iLife '06.

I used it on both my machines with 10.4.4 with no problems at all and saved about the 2gb as posted.

http://www.bombich.com/software/local.html

EDIT: Shard beat me to the punch.
Click to expand...

Yep, you're right, if you only need Enlgish you can reclaim heaps of space. But you don't need Delocalizer to do it - simply do a Get Info on each app in iLife and you can select the language files right there that you want to keep or delete. Do it for each app, but be warned - if you ever download an update to any apps, the files will restore themselves and you'll have to delete them again. ;)
 
If you don't really plan on using Garageband, you can claim back nearly 3GB of space by deleting the loops and instruments that live in your Macintosh HD>Application Support>Garageband folder

If you know you won't ever use some of the iDVD themes, you could delete some of those too.

Printer drivers are another option to save up to a GB - if you know that you're only going to print from a couple of manufacturers.

Do you listen to all the stuff in your iTunes library? I realised that about 10% of mine was stuff that I'd faithfully ripped from CD but was never really going to listen to. I burned back up copies of the digitised music and deleted them from the library - the 2 DVDs that they are on are safely put away and labeled so hopefully should I change my mind and not find the original CD, I'll find the DVD of them
 
Applespider said:
If you don't really plan on using Garageband, you can claim back nearly 3GB of space by deleting the loops and instruments that live in your Macintosh HD>Application Support>Garageband folder

If you know you won't ever use some of the iDVD themes, you could delete some of those too.
Click to expand...

Yeah, those HD themes and GarageBand loops take up an awful lot of space - best to delete them if you're not using them...

Applespider said:
Printer drivers are another option to save up to a GB - if you know that you're only going to print from a couple of manufacturers.
Click to expand...

Another good call. In my case, since I just do all of my printing at work, I have no need for any printer drivers. :eek: ;)
 
All good suggestions....


~Shard~ said:
Remove all the language packs you don't need. I have heard that it frees up anywhere between 750 MB and 2 GB for some iLife 06 users.
Click to expand...

I did some of that. I don't think I quite got 750 MB back -- maybe more like 500 -- but that was worthwhile. Maybe I should clean out some other non-iLife localizations as well. Too bad they come back with updates.

Applespider said:
If you don't really plan on using Garageband, you can claim back nearly 3GB of space by deleting the loops and instruments that live in your Macintosh HD>Application Support>Garageband folder

If you know you won't ever use some of the iDVD themes, you could delete some of those too.
Click to expand...

This is really what I was looking for. Thanks -- I couldn't remember where those loops and instruments lived.

Le Big Mac said:
Why not weed out some of your music? Or get an external drive for it. You're not going to save much space getting rid of an app here and there. It's the media that take up space, movies, tunes, photos.
Click to expand...
Applespider said:
Do you listen to all the stuff in your iTunes library? I realised that about 10% of mine was stuff that I'd faithfully ripped from CD but was never really going to listen to. I burned back up copies of the digitised music and deleted them from the library - the 2 DVDs that they are on are safely put away and labeled so hopefully should I change my mind and not find the original CD, I'll find the DVD of them
Click to expand...

I did this about 8 or 9 months ago, but maybe it's time to make a second pass. I only cleared off a gig or two last time, though.

Thanks! Any more suggestions?
 
dr427 said:
Somewhere I read you can drop at least 2gb by using Delocalizer if you only need English on your machine for iLife '06.

I used it on both my machines with 10.4.4 with no problems at all and saved about the 2gb as posted.

http://www.bombich.com/software/local.html

EDIT: Shard beat me to the punch.
Click to expand...

And here is where the issue is for me. My wife has her profile setup in Japanese which means i cant take it back to only english, but is there a way to clear out the other selected languages that you do not need, or is it an all or one kinda thing?

Ed
 
Ed H said:
And here is where the issue is for me. My wife has her profile setup in Japanese which means i cant take it back to only english, but is there a way to clear out the other selected languages that you do not need, or is it an all or one kinda thing?

Ed
Click to expand...

Yes, you can individually select which languages to remove.
 
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