Move OSX applications to external HD

[MacsAreBetter\]

I'm getting a MBA very soon (unless something better pops up) and 128GB is just.. miniscule. So I was thinking of making a thread, maybe sticky, on how to use up as little space as possible.

How would I go about moving non-essential applications (for example iLife etc.) to an external harddrive, without screwing up the OSX installations?

 

[blow45]

I don't think you are going to save much this way, go with something like cleanmymac instead (but be a bit careful on how you use it) so you can remove some unwanted language files and the like and save up some space. If you really want to copy some of the ilife suite on an external I think just copying the .app file from the apps folder elsewhere will suffice, though take this with a grain of salt cause I could be wrong there, it should still keep pointing to the right system folders even if you copy it off to an external. In any case, I don't think ilife is that heavy - maybe garageband but you can move all the high gb loop files and the like elsewhere. good luck. if you are afraid of screwing something up use superduper or carbon copy cloner and clone your os on a sparsebundle image on the external drive so you can reinstall from there.

 

[rkaufmann87]

App's themselves take up very little space for the most part. Media such as music, photos, and movies tend to take up the most space. However if you're really concerned you can use the internal storage for just the OS and apps and external storage for all data files.

 

[hfg]

A full install of OS X, iLife, iWork, Aperture, Photoshop, and a bunch of other apps and games only takes up about 20GB on my main system. About 1/2 of that is the apps directory. It is my data (pics, music, video, etc) which take the space.

-howard

 

[TheRealDamager]

Yeah - this is very likely WAY more trouble than it's worth.

 

[tom vilsack]

another idea is to install osx onto a portable harddrive...

http://www.maciverse.com/installing-snow-leopard-onto-an-external-hard-drive.html

 

[MR1324]

you will lose all the speed benefits of the ssd if you move the apps to a normal hdd.

 

[kemperman]

I'm getting a MBA very soon (unless something better pops up) and 128GB is just.. miniscule. So I was thinking of making a thread, maybe sticky, on how to use up as little space as possible.

How would I go about moving non-essential applications (for example iLife etc.) to an external harddrive, without screwing up the OSX installations?

If you think 128GB is too small then maybe the MBA isn't right for you. Putting apps, or pretty much anything else on an external HDD, negates the whole point of the MBA (portability). I see you had a MBP, why did you get rid of it? Was it because it was too big because the MBA plus HDD won't be much smaller

 

[YMark]

Yeah - this is very likely WAY more trouble than it's worth.

No question. Waaaaay more trouble.

If you think 128GB is too small then maybe the MBA isn't right for you.

Exactly. Sounds like the OP is purchasing the wrong computer.