Improving MBA 11" SSD space

[gman901]

I figured there are a lot of MBA 11" owners on this forum that also sync their iphones to their Air. My backups and apps that I own take about 15-20 GBs of space on my Air's SSD. Now that you can download podcasts, music and apps directly from the itunes or app store on your iphone/ipad, is it possible to delete all my apps from Air and still sync and be able to keep them on my devices including all the data without itunes trying to delete them all?

 

[Vazkor]

Very good question.

 

[ZombieZakk]

yes just dont have it sync apps simply uncheck the sync apps box and it should just leave everything else.

 

[peterski]

not so fast... (maybe?)

yes just dont have it sync apps simply uncheck the sync apps box and it should just leave everything else.

When you uncheck the "Sync Apps" in iTunes there is an immediate popup that informs you that doing so will remove all the apps and their related data from the iPhone... wonder if there is a work around

 

[PorterRocks]

Perhaps iCloud will enable this when it's released?

 

[Brenzo]

I'm not sure if this is possible with iOS device backups, but I know you can change the default storage library for your content (music, videos, etc.) to an external hard drive. There is even an Applescript that enables you to move only select content to that hard drive while still having it show up in iTunes. Of course, that content is not playable unless you have the hard drive plugged in.

One option would be to move the library to an external hard drive and store your apps and backup data on there. The problem then, however, may be that you can't perform any syncs or backups without having that drive plugged in. I'm not sure...

 

[gman901]

Thanks for the replies! I deleted some music, tv shows and all my podcasts which reclaimed about 4GB. I am using Downcast now so I can subscribe and download podcasts directly only my iPhone which definitely makes things easier. Hopefully icloud will let me do backups and sync apps + data to the cloud instead of my Air.

 

[olemrboston]

One option would be to move the library to an external hard drive and store your apps and backup data on there. The problem then, however, may be that you can't perform any syncs or backups without having that drive plugged in. I'm not sure...

I had added an external HDD to my Airport Extreme and in doing so when I transferred the backup data and all my media my apps and everything associated with my iTunes account for my iPhone migrated with it.

You could use a HDD directly plugged into your MBA only when you want to update your iPhone to save up tons of space. Feel free to send me a message if you have some hickups along the way. (If you so choose to go that route)

 

[VNM]

If you haven't already, you could remove languages you aren't using from programs with any one of xslimmer, monolingual, cleanmymac, etc. You'll reclaim quite a bit of space.

 

[butters149]

is there anyway to not sync apps to the itune? Also what about that new icloud service?

 

[GGJstudios]

If you haven't already, you could remove languages you aren't using from programs with any one of xslimmer, monolingual, cleanmymac, etc. You'll reclaim quite a bit of space.

One app that I would not recommend, based on the number of complaints that have been posted in this forum and elsewhere, is CleanMyMac. As an example: CleanMyMac cleaned too much