Whether you have a brand new Mac or one that seems to be running on its last leg, you may be looking to get back some of your hard drive space that seems to have been lost to the heavens long ago. This is especially true if you have a laptop (they have smaller hard drives), or a machine with a huge iTunes, iPhoto, or iMovie library.
One of the easiest ways to reclaim 1-2 GB of space in Mac OS X is to eliminate foreign language files that your Mac’s applications have hiding inside their application bundles. What are these files? As you may know, your Mac can run in any number of languages. In the United States, the default language is English, but in Norway, it’s Norwegian. There can be dozens of languages installed on your computer, but unless your computer is set up at an international internet cafe, it’s unlikely you’ll ever need to use a language other than your native tongue.
In addition to the operating system, most software developers include language files inside their applications so that no matter which language is selected for the operating system, the application can run in that language, too. By now, you probably have about 100 applications on your computer, and all those language files are taking up a lot of space. Luckily, some smart software developers have figured out how to automate the task of removing those files, and this tutorial covers removing those language files with Monolingual.
Note: There have been several reports online indicating that if you remove the language files from Microsoft Office 2008, you will not be able to update the software package without reinstalling the software. Consider not removing the language files from this application. While I have not heard similar reports about other software, if removing language files causes problems with your applications, your only recourse is to reinstall the software.
Removing Languages with Monolingual
The first thing you must do is go to the Monolingual web site and download the latest version (currently at 1.3.9). Copy the application from the disk image into your Applications folder and then open it up. You should get a window similar to this:
You’ll see a massive list of languages that Monolingual can remove. If you scroll through the list (indicated by the orange arrow), the program will likely have check boxes next to nearly all languages except your computer’s current language (thus, on my English-language computer, English is not checked).
Scroll through the list and make sure that any languages you do not need are checked. I found that I needed to check a few common, foreign languages that were not previously selected. Once you have selected all the languages you want to remove, click the Remove button, and then if you are sure you want to continue, click Continue.
Now, Monolingual will go through the tedious process of removing the language files from all of your applications! That’s it! Once the application is finished, you should check your free space to see how many gigabytes you saved.
Did this hint work for you? How else have you economized space? Let others know in the comments.
Most Commented Posts
Previous post: Work More Efficiently By Using Spaces and Login Items
Next post: Keep Track of Your Applications with Growl
Loading ...
{ 5 comments… read them below or add one }
How do I tell Monolingual to leave Office alone? Thanks Pete
Pete,
You can’t tell Monolingual to exclude certain programs. What you can do:
- Copy the Office folder to a flash drive, delete it from the Applications folder, running Monolingual, copy it back, OR
- Archive the Office folder (right-click, Archive), delete the folder, run Monolingual, then double click the archive to restore it.
Removing unneeded Architectures with Monolingual can be as useful as removing localization languages. If you have an Intel Mac you remove all the PPC (G3, G4, G5) code and another few gigabytes! It is accessed by clicking on the Architectures tab.
X slimmer is shareware that allows you to remove localization languages and inappropriate architectures on an application by application basis.
This is the command I use and it keeps all the different kinds of english project files since there’s more than one. Use this and you’ll be safe.
sudo find / \\! -name "English.lproj" \
\! -name "english.lproj" \
\! -name "en.lproj" \
\! -name "en_US.lproj" \
-name "*.lproj" -type d -exec rm -rf -- {} \; -prune
.-= Jimmy´s last blog ..Whee =-.
{ 1 trackback }