Filed under: Software, Leopard, Snow Leopard
Put Leopard on a diet while waiting for Snow Leopard to be released
We've all been there; we've all had that sickening feeling that comes from seeing "Macintosh HD" with less than 1 GB of available space. If you're staring at your Finder wondering where you can find some additional space without having to swap out the hard drive or buying a new Mac altogether Computerworld is here to help. They have an article up on the many ways it is possible to get rid of unnecessary files in Leopard as well as disable features you may not be using all in an effort to slim down and speed up your Mac while you wait for Snow Leopard.Many of the tips involve using software that we have previously mentioned, some of which are free and others are not. The list of tools used include such gems as Xslimmer for removing PowerPC compatibility, Monolingual for stripping out languages that are non-native to you, as well as DiskInventoryX for getting a graphical representation of where all your hard drive space went. The article also discusses improving performance by disabling 3D effects that use up GPU cycles for those users who prefer fast to pretty as well as increasing the amount of RAM installed in your system.
While Snow Leopard may still be some time away the tips provided are a great collection of steps that can be completed to help any Mac squeeze out some better performance and additional hard drive space. If you have any tips that aren't mentioned add them to the comments!
Finder icon courtesy of FHKE's Flickr stream
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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 2)
Macintologist said 4:13PM on 12-12-2008
I recommend Grand Perspective to get a.. "grand perspective" on where all your hard drive space is going. I also recommend WhatSize for a text based rather than graphical based representation.
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MKnight said 4:28PM on 12-12-2008
Hmm this looks like a neat program and just may have to pick it up!
Johan S said 10:52AM on 12-13-2008
I use both GrandPerspective and XSlimmer.
GrandPerspective to find big files i might have forgotten about.
XSlimmer to slim down all my apps. Currently it's saving me about 1.3gig of space using XSlimmer.
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Scott Arany said 4:47PM on 12-12-2008
Monolingual will also remove PPC architecture in addition to foreign fonts. While it isn't at "delicious" as Xslimmer's great UI (nor does it have the same built-in safeguards), it does exactly the same thing. Always wise to backup before using it.
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Ethan said 5:26PM on 12-12-2008
I'm actually looking at grabbing a bigger hard disk. Can I just hook it up on an enclosure and copy everything across, then swap them over?
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NoAndThen said 7:52PM on 12-12-2008
If I were you, Ethan, I would boot your mac into Target disk mode, connect it to another mac via firewire, and then connect the new drive to the other mac as well, and use disk utility/superduper/whatever you want to make a clone of your original hdd.
Or if you don't have another mac, just connect the new drive to your mac (preferably via firewire, as it'll be way faster in this case) and choose 'restore.'
Then make your current mac drive the source, and the new drive the destination. Another advantage of using firewire is that you can then boot from that drive (hold down option at the boot/splash screen and choose that external drive) to ensure it's all good. Then swap the drives and it's done.
Yet ANOTHER option, is to do a time machine backup (assuming your running 10.5 here) to a separate external hard drive, install your new drive and do a fresh os x install. Then when the migration wizard or whatever shows up, choose 'restore from time machine backup' and wait.... then you're exactly where you started, just with more GB's.
Ethan said 7:58PM on 12-12-2008
Wow, the options! I guess I'll ask a friend nicely. Thanks.
Joe Russell said 5:32PM on 12-12-2008
Hmm... I saw this a few days ago and was underwhelmed by what was shared.
I'd like to see some benchmarks of the before/after of these so-called diet items and what kind of a difference they actually make in performance.
Because, with the exception of the last tip (#10 - more RAM ...give me a break, that's a no-brainer), all I see is a bunch of tips on how to clear up just a few gigs of disk space.
I'm not impressed y'all.
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NoAndThen said 7:41PM on 12-12-2008
BOOOOOO.
" without having to swap out the hard drive or buying a new Mac altogether"
???? when the hell has this been an OR statement?
Hmmm.. getting low on disk space. Should I spend $100 on an external 500gb drive, or $1000+ on a new computer?
...you know, I don't even care. You guys are just ridiculous sometimes.
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James Madley said 9:01PM on 12-12-2008
Since the Power Mac, Mac Pro, MacBook and MacBook Pro. You can swap out their drives.
Dani Reader said 10:14PM on 12-12-2008
well, seeing as replacing a hard disk in an iMac is VERY difficult unless you're savvy, and they weren't talking external drives, they were probably steering clear of recommending it, so that the berks amongst their readers (much like you) wouldn't go "cool! I can swap my hard drive? where's my screwdriver!"
NoAndThen said 12:21PM on 12-13-2008
@ Dani Reader. Why do you have to be such an asshole? There is no reason to call me a berk, you are just immature.
And if you read the article, mr/ms berk, you'll notice they said 'mac.' NOT iMac, douche. And seeing as how the white macbook makes up the majority of macs out there, as it's sold more than any other, it's really not hard to swap out just about any drive but an iMac.
And yes, I have swapped out iMac hdds (and macbook, mbp, g5...)... its a process but its not hard, just tedious. Once you get the screen out it's a piece of cake.
Wait, I can swap my HDD? Where's my screwdriver?
Jon said 10:30PM on 12-12-2008
Swapping a HD is one of those things I absolutely dread in windows and find so easy in os x.
I do wish that some of the operating system extras (languages, obscure drivers) could be removed and easily restored online without the install disk. Bewarevwhat you delete from os x as it is often not easy to get back
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Rob said 9:06PM on 12-12-2008
I HIGHLY recommend Monolingual. It was on of the first things I did when I bought my late 2007 black MacBook. It freed up a little over gig of space.
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pegasus said 11:07PM on 12-13-2008
Watch these utilities if running MS Office. Updates and Service Packs are a royal pain if you remove the language files. iWORK FTW!
Maldaen said 5:01AM on 12-13-2008
Actually, the biggest offender for unused disk space that I've seen aside from language and font support is in the printer drivers category. Pull out printer drivers from manufacturers who don't make printers you own or use, and suddenly you have about 2GB of new space, if not more.
Or, you should do what any Mac user should be doing in the first place: not using the factory-imaged OSs on new hard drives, which I'm sure are responsible for about 25-50% of serious software issues, and doing a custom erase & install on a new computer to purge this useless data from the get-go.
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globetrotterdk said 7:04AM on 12-13-2008
I noticed with interest and some trepidation that there appear to be some serious problems with G5's and Leopard. My personal experience has been that Time Machine and MobileMe are running constantly and I am experiencing serious performance hits. I have tried to reduce the performance hits by excluding the three /Cache/ folders on my system, but TM and MM still seem to be running constantly. They didn't do this when I first upgraded to 10.5.5.
I have seen others that have posted on various fora with similar problems, but no real solutions seem to be at hand. I may consider trying Xslimmer, but in reality, this is an Apple issue. My G5 is clearly within the recommended parameters for Leopard, and yet I don't see any attempts by Apple to deal with this issue.
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Michael Rose said 8:49AM on 12-13-2008
Just one note of warning re. Monolingual -- don't use it on Microsoft Office, or subsequent updates and packages may not install.
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mart said 4:46PM on 12-13-2008
I'm a little confused. What has this got to do with Snow Leopard?
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Squid7085 said 4:49PM on 12-13-2008
I got so used to only having 70 GB with my old PowerBook, and bought a HD for extra stuff, when I bought my MacBook Pro with 250 GB, I suddenly have a lot of room, and even now I have more free space than I had space on my PowerBook, so I think I am good for awhile. :-) My Time Capsule also helps out quite a bit. I think I will do some of this stuff though, get it back to more that 100 GB free space would be nice.
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