Removing the Classic environment from a Mac OS X system
Several MacFixIt readers have recently inquired about the process for removing the Classic environment from their Mac OS X startup volume in an effort to save space.
The steps are relatively simple, and are as follows (generally you can save about 1 GB of disk space by eliminating Classic, dependent on a variety of factors):
First, make sure Classic isn't running via the Classic pane in System Preferences.
Next, drag the "System Folder" folder at the root level of your hard drive to the trash. If Mac OS X won't let you delete the folder, open it and trash all of its contents. Restart, and you should now be able to delete the folder itself. (Alternatively, type the following in the Terminal: sudo rm -rf '/System Folder' -- you will be prompted for your administrator password. )
You'll also want to delete /Applications (Mac OS 9) after rebooting.
You can also delete the following files:
- /System/Library/PreferencePanes/Classic.prefPane to remove the Classic preference pane from System Preferences
- /System/Library/CoreServices/Classic Startup.app.
Feedback? Late-breakers@macfixit.com.
Resources
the Classic preference pane? These are part of Mac OS X, NOT part of Mac OS 9.
These should be left alone.
The only things you need to do is trash the Mac OS 9 system folder and the Mac
OS 9 applications folder.
I agree. It's crazy advice.
http://www.macosxhints.com/article.php?story=20050430120117382&query=remove+classic
It shows you how to rebless your system after removing classic. I needed to do this because after removing classic, some imaging apps (mainly NetRestore) would fail because they would be looking for directories that weren't there.
no more than a couple of hundred megabytes of free space. If deleting 500
MB really *helps* someone gaining more free space on the startup volume,
then that volume is too full anyway!
You might rather want to use Youpi Optimizer or a similar utility do delete
unnecessary language files from your system. Also, you might want to
examine the contents of iDVD, iMovie or the iWork application packages for
literally *tons* of unneeded templates.
Just open your Applications folder in the list view, open the View Options
panel from the View menu, activate Calculate Folder Sizes and then sort the
list by Size. Then you'll see immediately where to start...
you are not trashing fonts you will want to use later.
benefit.
Just replace it with a clean one if yours is too fat.
If you really need to gain 187MB, you need to buy a new hard drive!
sake that I don't use it anymore do to all apps i use being on OS X at this
point...But not for reason of space but simple for organization. Plus when it
comes to operations like hard disk scans, defrag (something I don't really do but
an example) permissions repair, virus scan etc...Things that will be rummaging
through these unused files, then i see more sense in removing for those reasons
than space...does anyone know if intel OS X even supports classic? Since classic
would literally run in rosetta environment itself. That would be quite a cpu
overhead for anything actually intense in OS 9 such as games etc.
the command line alternative presented, it is VERY IMPORTANT to include the
hard-to-see single quote marks around 'System Folder'. If you omit the
quotes, then the instruction is to remove /System from the top level of the
volume (that is, the "guts" of Mac OS X) and all its contents, and something
named Folder in the directory one is in in Terminal when executing the
command. (If you start a fresh Terminal window and you haven't arranged
otherwise, you'll be in the /Users/yourusrname directory.)
Removing System is not a good thing.
Any time I include the -f ("force"...that is, I really do mean what I say...don't
bug me) flag in an rm command, I remove my hands from the keyboard, and
contemplate what the command is going to do
didn't want to get rid of it permanently. Instead of trashing it, I created a disk
image and copied the System Folder, Applications (Mac OS 9), etc. to the disk
image.
<br>
It's really easy after that. Store the disk image wherever you want to keep it
permanently (mine's on an external hard drive). Mount the image, then open
the Classic preference pane in System Preferences and choose the OS 9
System Folder on the mounted disk image as the one you want to use to run
Classic. Start up Classic and then shut it down (just to make sure it works),
then quit System Preferences. <i>Then</i> eject the mounted disk image.
<br>
Now, whenever you open a Classic application, Classic Startup will
automatically mount the disk image before starting Classic (assuming the
drive on which the image resides is attached to your machine at the time).
When you're done, just quit Classic (via the menubar item, Activity Monitor,
an AppleScript, or even System Preferences) and remember to unmount the
disk image.
<br>
Just make sure that when you unmount the image, System Preferences is
<b>not</b> open. If it is open, you'll lose your automatic image-mounting.
But it's easily re-enabled. Just mount the image, choose it in the Classic
preference pane as before, quit System Preferences, then unmount the image.
<br>
I like this solution quite a bit. It's much more flexible than just trashing
Classic, and it's more portable and easy to troubleshoot. If you want to add
Classic to another Mac that doesn't have it, just copy the disk image. If you
make a copy of the image right after you create it, and later down the line you
have trouble with your Classic installation, just throw it away and make a
fresh copy of the backed-up version! The only thing you lose is booting the
machine to OS 9, which probably doesn't concern you if you were considering
throwing away the whole thing anyway.
- by WhiteDog January 24, 2006 2:30 AM PST
- Some people, like me, have a fat OS 9 Syatem Folder and a lot of left over OS
- Like this Reply to this comment
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(10 Comments)9 applications - and documents. Deleting these can save some significant
space, particularly on older laptops with relatively small hard drives. Another
alternative, if you need to keep OS 9 or Classic, is to use a program like
Carbon Copy Cloner that will let you clone your OS 9 files (including the
invisible ones) to a partition on an external FireWire hard drive. An even
better solution is to do a clean install of OS 9 or Classic on an external
drive partition and then reinstall only those applications you really need.
If you feel you must, for whatever reason, totally remove Classic from your
computer, be sure, first, that you make copies of any leftover documents, like
financial records, that you might someday need. Most can be opened in the
OS X version of the appropriate applications, like MS Word, AppleWorks and
FileMaker Pro. If you?re not sure about their compatibility, open them in OS X
and save updated copies. If you run into any problems, then you can make an
informed decision about whether you really need those files or not - rather
than finding out later that they are gone or that you can?t access them.
And it?s quite simple to save a copy of your OS 9 fonts folder before trashing
the system. Some of your old documents may use OS 9 fonts and, while most
will open with font substitution, it can really mess up your formatting which,
in some cases, can be a real headache to fix. It?s a simple matter to add any
OS 9 fonts you need to your user fonts folder - being careful to check first in
Font Book in OS X to be sure there isn?t already a copy of that font on your
system. Font duplication is a headache of another kind.
All this may seem like a lot of work, but remember the expression, ?measure
twice, cut once.? It?ll be a lot more work and aggravation if you are in a hurry
and carelessly mess things up.
As for the advisability of removing OS 9 or Classic, that depends, as they say,
on the circumstances. There are good reasons on both sides of the argument
and the right answer depends on which reasons apply to you.
---
Don't anthropomorphize computers.
They hate that.