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Removing extraneous language support files in Mac OS X
Several English-speaking MacFixIt readers have recently inquired about the removal of extraneous language support files from Mac OS X in an effort to constrain startup volume disk usage.
There are a couple of methods for removing the files, which are stored both at a System and individual-application level (Applications store these files inside in /Contents/Resources/).
The first method, as discussed in the Bombich Software Forums, is to use the following command in the Terminal (located in Applications/Utilities). This will delete any files that end in .lproj except for those with an English designation:
- sudo find / ( -name *.lproj -and ! ( -name English.lproj -or -name en.lproj ) ) -exec rm -rf {} ;
The other option is to use DeLocalizer, which deletes lproj folders from the OS and all applications.
Note, however, that there are some potential pitfalls when deleting .lproj. For instance, some users report that after using DeLocalizer under Mac OS X 10.4.x, ADmitMac 3 has problems with Active Directory integration.
If you've encountered any other issues with deleting extraneous language files, please let us know.
Resources
you choose which languages to remove. Last time I looked, DeLocalizer
removes all languages except English, without giving you the option to save
specific languages.
This is incorrect. DeLocalizer's window lists languages and allows individual
selection of any to delete and an option to select all but American English.
You're right--I just checked again, and it does let you remove only specific
languages. I think I got the idea that it removes all except English, without
giving you a choice, from a report at www.thexlab.com: Freeing Space on Your
Mac OS X Boot Volume, which says so, but I can see they're wrong.
version 7.
There are other tools for removing language resources besides DeLocalizer and
Monolingual: Youpi Optimizer and Macaroni. I like Youpi; you choose a directory
to examine and it'll report back all the resources and spaced occupied.
Yes you are correct about Acrobat 7 not working if you remove it's language
files. I recently manually deleted all of the non English files from my apps on
my P.B, leaving those of acrobat intact. This has worked. I don't believe previous
versions of acrobat were effected.
Yes you are correct about Acrobat 7 not working if you remove it's language
files. I recently manually deleted all of the non English files from my apps on
my P.B, leaving those of acrobat intact. This has worked. I don't believe previous
versions of acrobat were effected.
folders in a folder of your choice and lets you (de)select any of those you wish
to delete or to keep. (If you ever had problems with an earlier version of YO,
make sure to update to the most recent v1.7.2!)
update fails, Adobe did fix this. Linotype FontExplorerX requires the
german.lproj to run. As far as freeware applications to remove unwanted
language resources Monolingual, Youpi Optimizer support 10.3 and up with
latest updates mid 05, where DeLocalizer has not been tested on 10.3 (from
Bombich website) last update 09, 2002.
the latest version, 1.2.9.
The new version has a greatly expanded list of foreign languages it'll remove.
I only leave UK English, US English, and English (I don't know the difference
between the last one and the other two.).
So far, I've used it on two of a client's Macs (1 new PowerBook right out of the
box, and a reformatted iBook with OSX Tiger reinstalled and updated via
Software Update), and it removed HUNDREDS of MB of files.
I got a similar, but lesser result, just over 100MB saved, on one of our G5s
that had been swept clear by an earlier version of Monolingual.
I swear by it.
The new version also shows each file (as text) as it is being removed, and
goes app-by-app.
Cheers,
Rob
course. I've never had a problem with it.
TinkerTool System also has language removal under the International tab.
and then there is Macaroni, which amongst other useful things, can regularly
check for the languages you don't want and purge them.
- by danakeil January 27, 2006 2:18 PM PST
- The terminal command listed in this item may give an error about the ";" (it may
- Like this Reply to this comment
-
(12 Comments)need "\;" to work). The version of the unix find command included with Mac OS
X has an option "-delete" that can be substituted for the "-exec rm -rf {} ;" part,
thus avoiding the tricky -exec option which is often necessary in other versions
of find that do not have "-delete".