Trying to regain space after removing Office

[MarcC]

After installing Office 2008, I realized that it had various components which I did not need (Entourage, Messenger, languages).

In the quest to preserve the limited MBA disk space, I removed Office, using the Office Removal Utility which is part of Office, and reinstalled it without those components.

However, the following occurred: 1. Before removal, I had 17.98 GB free. 2. After removal, I still had 17.98 GB free. 3. After installation, I only had 17.27 GB free.

Thus, I lost space rather than regained it. Why didn't I gain any space after removal of Office. How do I get that space back.

 

[clayj]

This may seem a silly question, but did you empty your trash? I don't know for sure how the Office Removal Utility works, but there's a good chance it just moves stuff to the trash... which means it's still taking up disk space. You need to empty the trash in order to reclaim that space.

 

[MarcC]

Solved the issue myself simply by shutting down and restarting. Unused space went to 19.5 GB

 

[dahcheet]

Solved the issue myself simply by shutting down and restarting. Unused space went to 19.5 GB

It's always good practice to reboot after installing/uninstalling large software/applications just to make sure all the settings took. Glad you freed up some space on your drive.

 

[NC MacGuy]

I see that same thing a lot. I close and reopen finder window and it displays updated disk space.

 

[clayj]

I see that same thing a lot. I close and reopen finder window and it displays updated disk space.

True. This is an area where Windows actually works better; if you delete files and empty the Recycle Bin, the free disk space updates instantly. In Mac OS X, it can take some amount of time for the system to refresh the values.

 

[NC MacGuy]

I find the same thing say if I have a folder open in finder, create a new file in it while open in say Word, it sometimes doesn't show up in open folder window. Freaked me out at first but if I close folder and reopen, there it is.