Cleaning Up A Mac

[Rod Hagen]

I've run out of disk space. Before I start the task of looking through poorly labled boxes, I was wondering what some good places to delete temp files and the like are.

 

Also, is there a good cleanup utility for Mac? THANKS!

 

RH

[Rod Hagen]

>I've run out of disk space. Before I start the task of

>looking through poorly labled boxes,

 

That made no sense. Sorry. Ignore that. Just want help cleaning up my computer. I've emptied the cache and deleted old and deleted emails. Where are some secret places unnecessary data hides on Macs? THANKS!

 

 

http://www.RodHagen.com

310.360.9890

Fun affectionate guy in Los Angeles.

-Rod Hagen

[+ honcho]

Since I'm told that OS10 has FreeBSD underpinnings, you might look in

whatever corresponds to /tmp and /var/tmp .

[Lookin]

I think the trick is figuring out what's necessary and what's not. I'm always amazed by how many files get loaded in weird places as the weeks go by. And I never know which ones are OK to get rid of.

 

In the past, I've wimped out and bought a utility. Spring Cleaning is one: http://www.allume.com/mac/springcleaning/index.html

 

I'm sure you've looked at upgrading or adding a drive. They're awfully cheap these days.

 

Good luck!

[+ deej]

>I've emptied the cache and deleted

>old and deleted emails.

 

One of the things often overlooked when cleaning up email is the sent items folder (if you're keeping them). That stuff just piles up year after year because most people don't think to clean it out.

[tedbear]

Do a search (Command-F) and select "size", then put in some arbitrary number, such as 5 MB. (That's from Tiger, but you should be able to search in a similar manner on older operating systems).

 

Look through the files that are found and see if there's anything that you can dispose of. I've sometimes found old quicktime files that I no longer wanted, for example. Be careful not to destroy anything important, but it's a quick way to get space back.

[Rod Hagen]

Clean Sweep cleared out 800 MB!!!