Low End Mac Reader Specials

TypeStyler For Mac OS X is Now Shipping! Download The Free Fully Functional 60 Day Tryout at www.typestyler.com

Poker Mac Don't install Parallels to play poker online! Poker Mac will show you how to download and install a native Mac poker application such as Full Tilt Poker Mac.

Laptop Hardware Provided by TechRestore - Overnight Mac & iPod Repairs.

Compare products like desktop computers, apple laptops, apple macs, and LCD Monitors side by side! All the information and reviews to make the best purchasing decision for new mobile phones, sat nav systems, or MP3 players. The Ciao online shopping community makes searching products easy for you.

Mac Lab Report

2 Free Programs that Give You More Space on Your Mac's Hard Drive

- 2006.12.13

I ran across a couple of utilities last week (via an article on Digg) that can help the OS X user eliminate some unnecessary files. These two utilities have given me back nearly 2 GB of free space. Your mileage may vary.

The default install of OS X includes a number of language kits that are used to display the operating in other languages. That's just in case you should suddenly move to France or something, I guess. I'm sure there are people who need alternative languages installed and find the feature very convenient, but I doubt they are the majority.

Monolingual

Anyway, this wonderful utility called Monolingual by J. Schrier and Ingmar J. Stein strips all the unneeded/unwanted languages from your Mac. This process can take a while to complete. On my 1.5 GHz G4 PowerBook, it took around 15-20 minutes to locate and delete all the extra language files. I gained nearly 1.3 GB hard drive space from this simple operation.

Just be sure you don't delete English in your enthusiasm, read the manual carefully to avoid a few other problems before starting. Even better, when installing OS X, choose a customized install and don't install the unnecessary files in the first place.

iPhoto Buddy

Another utility is iPhoto Buddy by Rick Neil. iPhoto Buddy searches your library for duplicate files, original versions of photos that have been edited, thumbnails, and images not filed in an album, and selectively deletes them or moves them to a folder at your direction. You get a considerable amount of control of what happens during this screening.

This utility also takes a while to run, but the result was nearly 800 MB of files located for deletion. I had a problem with my iPhoto files on a previous computer, and as a result I imported two partial libraries on the computer I use now, resulting in widespread duplication of images.

The author wisely advises you to back up your library before beginning. I use Backup regularly to preserve all of my photos, music, and documents, so this wasn't a problem.

I'm sure there are other fine utilities out there, but I urge all OS X users to take a look at these two.

Like all Macs, modern machines don't behave well when hard drive space begins to run out, because the OS is constantly writing files to the drive for memory management, defragmentation, and so on, and it needs a little room to breathe. LEM

Jeff Adkins is a science teacher who isn't afraid to state his preferences in computing platforms. In his classroom he has everything from a beige All-in-One to a a G4 XServe, and they all work together nicely. He calls himself the "poster child for technology integration" in the classroom. He was the 2006 Outstanding Educator of the Year for the California Computer Using Educators (CUE) organization. He also maintains a site for astronomy teachers at www.AstronomyTeacher.com.

Recent Mac Lab Reports

Links for the Day

Recent Content on Low End Mac

Recent Deals

About LEM | Support | Usage | Privacy | Contacts

Mac Lab Report copyright © 2000-08 by Jeff Adkins. Entire Low End Mac website copyright ©1997-2009 by Cobweb Publishing, Inc., unless otherwise noted. All rights reserved. Advice presented in good faith, but what works for one may not work for all. Please report errors to .
  LINKS: We allow and encourage links to any public page as long as the linked page does not appear within a frame that prevents bookmarking it.
  Access our RSS news feed at http://lowendmac.com/feed.xml.
  Email may be published at our discretion; email addresses will not be published without permission, and we will encrypt them in hopes of avoiding spammers. If you prefer your message not be published, mark it "not for publication." Letters may be edited for length, context, and to match house style.
  PRIVACY: We don't collect personal information unless you explicitly provide it. For more details, see our Terms of Use.
  Low End Mac is an independent publication and has not been authorized, sponsored, or otherwise approved by Apple Inc. Apple, the Apple logo, Macintosh, iBook, iMac, eMac, iPod, iPhone, PowerBook, MacBook, MagSafe, Mac Pro, Apple TV, and AirPort are registered trademarks of Apple Inc. Additional company and product names may be trademarks or registered trademarks and are hereby acknowledged.

Custom Search

Amazon.com

Navigation

Used Mac Dealers
Apple History
Video Cards
Email Lists

Favorite Sites

MacSurfer
MacMinute
MacInTouch
MyAppleMenu
InfoMac
Macs Only!
The Mac Observer
Accelerate Your Mac
RetroMacCast
PB Central
MacWindows
The Vintage Mac
   Museum
DealMac
DealsOnTheWeb
Mac2Sell
ramseeker
Mac Driver Museum
JAG's House
System 6 Heaven
System 7 Today
the pickle's Low-End
   Mac FAQ
Abandonware
   Petition
Mac vs. PC Info

Affiliates

The Apple Store
Mac Connection
B&H
MacMall
TechRestore
ExperCom
Crucial Memory
batteries.com

Advertise

All of our advertising is handled by BackBeat Media. For price quotes and advertising information, please contact at BackBeat Media (646-546-5194). This number is for advertising only.

Open Link

Problems viewing this page with Internet Explorer 5.5 or 6? It works fine in other browsers, including IE 7. We recommend Firefox for those using Windows, as it is standards based and more secure than IE 6 (and earlier). More LEM visitors use Firefox than any other browser.