Warning! Nerdy Apple bloggy stuff!

I’ve had my Apple iBook G4 for over a year now and it is time to try
and recover some lost space that is pointlessly being taken up by
files that I don’t need and I don’t use. I’m going through the net
trying to find out what files that OS X is hiding from me. These are
files that I’ve downloaded but are pointlessly kept. An example of
this would be my ipod updater files. i only need the most recent
one. The others could be deleted- saving me a whopping 200MB.
Here’s my research:

**Some Apple apps use packages. To remove them use DesInstaller
[www.versiontracker.com]

***I keep getting Use Disk Utility, but it sounds scary.

***http://maczealots.com/articles/hiddenfiles/

***I’m trying Onyx right now. Just do a search on Onyx Mac OS X.
It’s free and it has a nice interface. It recovered 1 gig by simply
cleaning the cache. I hit the cleaning tab and it worked like a
charm. I have to restart now. I’ll get back to you. I’m trying
Main Menu next (it’s another maintenance program.)

Re: What apps can I safely delete?
Posted by: mudbug (IP Logged)
Date: February 9, 2006 01:40AM

Yes, there is no reason to be completely reinstalling your system
every four months. May I ask why you do this?

Out of the three applications that “uninstall”, according to the
reviews on the most recent versions, if you had to use such an
application, Uninstaller is the winner, DeInstaller second, AppZapper
last.

AppZapper Reviews:
[www.macupdate.com]
[www.versiontracker.com]
“Apparently, AppZapper only finds the files with the application name
and not those invisible files and files with names that are not the
same as the app.”

“For the “well done” Mac apps, if you want to save yourself some
money, Spotlight works just as well as this does, if not better (more
on that in a second). But for the complex apps, like Final Cut Pro or
Microsoft Office, AZ doesn’t work. If you have Entourage, drag it
into AppZapper, and see what happens. All it catches (when I tried
it) is the program, none of its prefs or support files. On the other
hand, do a Spotlight search for “Microsoft Entourage” and you’ll get
what you’re looking for.”

DeInstaller Reviews:
[www.macupdate.com]
[www.versiontracker.com]
“DesInstaller is a simple tool that reads the receipts generated when
you install a .pkg file with Apple’s Installer. Every file installed
by this package is removed, even if it has been modified, and
archived if you ask the DesInstaller to. If you decide to use a
reinstaller, you will get a tar archive, for portability, and a shell
script with a “command” extension, to be double clickable. Please be
aware that even if the reinstalller does not actually care about its
position when invoked, the two parts (the tar archive and the term
shell script) are both needed in the same folder.”

Uninstaller Reviews:
[www.versiontracker.com]
[www.macupdate.com]
“Uninstaller is a Cocoa drag and drop software that scans and checks
the contents of folders and volumes for changes. It then allows you
to delete files and folders created since the previous save state.

First you must scan your Hard-Disk or “Applications” folder and Save
its state just before installing any new software. Then you can
easily uninstall any new software by Scanning your Hard-Disk or
“Applications” folder again, selecting all new items and click
“Delete items” to remove. Your machine is back to the way it was
before installing the new software.

Please Note: Uninstaller checks changes by comparing files and
folders names so if you rename a file or a folder it will be treated
(including its contents for a folder) as a new item and eventually
unexpectedly deleted. Please remember to “Save state” before
installing new software.”

Quote:
“One of the things that is beautiful about Mac OS X is the
application bundle format. On OS X, most applications, although they
look like single files, are actually folders. These folders which
look like files, or “bundles” as they are called on OS X, contain not
only the program itself, but all of the support files and resources
it needs to run. If an application is self-contained in this manner,
then chances are no installer will be needed to install all its
separate parts on your hard drive. The upshot of all this is that the
majority of applications on OS X can be installed simply by dragging
them to your Applications folder, and can be uninstalled by dragging
them to the Trash and emptying it.

Of course, there are some legitimate exceptions to this rule (and
some poorly written applications which use an installer even though
it’s not necessary). In these cases, however, the author of the
application will usually distribute an uninstaller along with the
application. For some applications, the installer you used to install
the application also has the ability to uninstall it. In general,
though, if you didn’t have to run an installer to install an
application, you won’t need an uninstaller to remove it.

If you really want to remove all traces of an application, you can
check the Library/Preferences and Library/Application Support folders
inside your home folder. There may sometimes be a file inside one or
both of these folders which contains application settings, support
information, etc. for the app. However, it is generally not necessary
to delete these files as they usually take an insignificant amount of
space on the disk, and will not cause any problems if left alone.
Plus, should you ever decide to put the application back on your hard
drive and start using it again, your settings will be just how you
left them if you didn’t delete the preference files, so it’s usually
best just to leave these files alone.

In summary, in the majority of cases, all you will need to do to
uninstall an app on the Mac is drag it to the Trash. It really is
that simple.”

Detalied explanation here:
[www.project-think.com]