Mac Clean Up Library Folder
Now that you’ve gotten rid of your iPhoto library, it makes sense to completely uninstall iPhoto – that way you won’t accidentally create a new iPhoto Library and have to repeat all these steps. It’s as simple as opening up your Applications folder, and deleting iPhoto (using one of the three steps we just discussed). Jul 24, 2014 - about 150gb are in the two Library folders (root/library, user/library). This is a Mac Pro that I have been using for 6 years since Leopard, never clean installing, always upgrading. There has to be some stuff I can get rid of. Summary: This post describes easy ways to remove / delete Mac leftover files. One of the best tools to remove Mac leftover files and other unwanted apps and large files from Mac is Stellar SpeedUp Mac. Uninstalling programs and applications from a computer is quite common and rather straightforward.
With the upgrade to Photos, many Mac users have been left with a duplicate iPhoto library on their Macs. Here’s how to delete iPhoto library and clear out some clutter.
iPhoto used to be the standard photo editor and photo management system on Macs, at least for the average computer user. Like it or not, however, that all changed when Apple first introduced the software, nearly a year ago. If your Mac came from Apple with Photos already installed, you don’t need to worry about old iPhoto libraries.
A Mac that was upgraded to a new version of OS X that added the Photos app, however, can end up with what look like duplicates of their photo libraries. The first time you start up Photos after upgrading, your Mac will copy over your photo library into the new software (if you explicitly set up more than one old iPhoto library, you’ll have to copy them over yourself). It doesn’t go back and delete the old one, though.
Here’s where things get a little bit confusing: you don’t actually have two copies of your photos. Thanks to the way OS X (the software that powers your Mac, like Windows powers a PC) works, your pictures aren’t actually stored in those libraries. Instead, they’re stored somewhere else on your hard drive, and each library has what Apple calls a “hard link” to the pictures. As a result, each library can access the photos, but store separate information about them. You can delete either library safely; only if you were to delete both libraries would you lose access to your pictures.
While having a second copy of your photo library doesn’t take up that much extra space on your computer, it can still be confusing – first of all, each library reports that it’s a certain size, which can make it difficult to figure out how much room is left on your Mac. Additionally, if you need to back things up, it can be hard to figure out where your files are.
Still with us? Let’s recap:
- if you upgrade your Mac from iPhoto to Photos, you’ll get a second photo library
- if you had multiple iPhoto libraries (you would know if you did), you’ll need to copy them into Photos manually
- the libraries each link to a single copy of your photos, rather than storing each photo twice
- it can appear that your libraries are taking up more space than they are, thanks to the way hard links work
- you can safely delete either photo library – only if you delete both of them will you lose access to your photos
How to delete iPhoto library on your Mac
Now that you understand why you might want to delete an old iPhoto library, and why you don’t necessarily have to, let’s talk about how to actually do it.
Before you do anything like this on your Mac – that is, delete something potentially important – you should back up your software with something like Time Machine.
Read: How to Backup Your Mac with Time Machine
That way, if you accidentally delete something important, or something else goes wrong, you can always roll things back to how they were when you started. This is really easy, and there’s nothing to be concerned about; it’s just good practice to back things up (and keep them backed up) before you muck about in your computer.
First, you’ll need to open a Finder window: you can do this by clicking on the Finder icon (it looks like a square face) on the dock, or by clicking on your Mac’s desktop background and hitting ⌘+N (Command + N) on your keyboard.
Next, look at the left-hand column in the new window. You’ll see a list of locations around your Mac; find the one that says Pictures and click on it. You’ll be taken to that directory, which contains libraries for Apple’s image-related apps (Photos, iPhoto, Photo Booth, etc).
In the list of files on the right, scroll down and look for your iPhoto library – it’ll be a little iPhoto icon, and the name will read, unsurprisingly, iPhoto Library. Don’t worry about accidentally deleting your Photo Booth or Photos libraries; you’ll be able to see which one is which.
To actually delete the library, you can do one of three things:
- Click on the iPhoto Library listing, and without letting go of your mouse or trackpad button, drag it until it’s over top the Trash icon on your dock. Once you’re on top of the Trash, let go.
- You can select (click on) the iPhoto Library, then right-click on your mouse or Trackpad (Apple will call this Secondary Click in your Mouse or Trackpad settings). A new menu will pop up; find the entry that says Move to Trash and click on it.
- Finally, you can also delete your iPhoto Library by clicking on it and hitting ⌘+Delete (Command + Delete) on your keyboard.
Read: How to uninstall apps on Mac OS X
Now that you’ve gotten rid of your iPhoto library, it makes sense to completely uninstall iPhoto – that way you won’t accidentally create a new iPhoto Library and have to repeat all these steps. It’s as simple as opening up your Applications folder, and deleting iPhoto (using one of the three steps we just discussed). For a more in-depth look at how to uninstall apps on your Mac, be sure to check out our guide above!
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So, your music collection is a mess. It’s grown from a toddling collection of your best songs to a mammoth network of playlists filled with songs that you don’t even remember. If this is you, I feel your pain. I really do.
Organizing your iTunes media folder can be quite a hassle. It takes much time and is especially vexing if you have to deal with deleting duplicates and songs that you don’t really like. And we’ve not even got into dealing with your installer cache, cookies, logs, junk files, old backups and other useless files.
Knowing what you’re going through, in this article, we show you how to quickly clean up your iTunes media folder with the least amount of stress.
Locate Your iTunes Media Folder on PC/Mac
Your iTunes library is organized into two library files and a media folder. Here’s how you can locate the media folder.
Ordinarily, your iTunes media folder is in your iTunes folder. This is the default location. The folder will be titled as follows:
- Mac: Finder > username > music
- Windows 7 or later: Usersusernamemusic
- Windows XP: Documents and SettingsusernameMy DocumentsMy music
If the folder is not in the default location, you can find it by using the following steps:
Step 1: Open iTunes.
Step 2:On Mac: From the menu bar at the top of your computer screen, click on iTunes > Preferences.
On Windows: From the menu bar at the top of your iTunes window, click on Edit > Preferences.
Step 3: Click the Advanced tab.
Step 4: There will be a box under “iTunes Media folder location”. That’s where your iTunes media folder is.
Now that you’ve found your iTunes media folder, here’s how you can clean it quickly and easily.
How to Clean up iTunes Media Folder - 3 Ways
You don’t have to use any application or internet tool to clean up your iTunes media folder. If you want to, you can do this clean up manually.
1 One-Stop Solution to Clean iTunes Media Folder Automatically
Instead of manually searching media folder on your PC and deciding which files to delete, you'd better consider iMyFone TunesFix, an advanced iTunes cleaner. It is the one-stop shop for cleaning iTunes media, used software updates, old backups and other useless files to keep iTunes clean and run at optimum.
Key Features:
- Automatically remove media files from iTunes library and iTunes media folder with ease.
- Release huge iTunes storage space by simply deleting used iTunes/iOS software updates and useless backups (including backups made by both iTunes and 3rd-party programs).
- Tune up iTunes performance by 1 click to clear all useless files, including cookies, cache, logs, junk files, etc.
- Let you handle every issue you have with iTunes with minimal stress.
You can quickly and easily clean up your iTunes media folder with iMyFone TunesFix through the following easy steps:
Step 1: Open iMyFone TunesFix on your PC. It will do auto-detection of your iTune. If your iTunes is fragmentary, it gives you option to fix it. If your iTunes works perfect, you will see the home interface.
Clean Up Library Folder Mac
Step 2: There will be 7 options. Select “Quick Clean” mode and your iTunes will get scanned.
Note: If you want to clean useless backups which are hidden and occuping much space, click on “Deep Clean”.
Step 3: How to access library on mac catalina. TunesFix will show you the scanning result of iTunes media files, iOS backups, software update files and other data. Only tick the files you want to clean and click “Clean” button to start cleaning.
It cleans fast and only takes a few minutes or even a few seconds. You'll know how much space has been saved after cleaning.
2 How to Manually Clean iTunes Media Folder
Since you can locate your iTunes media folder, you can manually delete some unwanted files from the folder. However, to clean all your iTunes data at one place, you need to consolidate files first:
- On iTunes, go to “File > Library > Organize Library” and check “Consolidate files” and hit “OK” to save the settings.
After that, get into the iTunes media folder and you may see different folders there, such as Books, Music, Movies, Podcasts, Homw Videos, Audiobooks, Tones, Podcasts, Downloads, etc. For example, the Books folder stores everything in your iTunes Books library. So do other folders.
Get into the specific iTunes media folder and delete the unwanted or duplicate files.
3 Manually Clean iTunes Media Folder from iTunes
Or you can directly clean up iTunes media folder by deleting unwanted files from iTunes library.
Step 1: Open iTunes.
Step 2: Go to the specific library where stores the unwanted files, like music library.
Mac Os Clean Up User Library Folder
Step 3: Select the unwanted songs there and right click on it. Choose “Delete from library”.
Step 4: Click on “Delete Song” and tap on “Move to Recycle Bin”. It will delete the song from iTunes library and iTunes media folder.
Note: If you choose “Keep File”, it will delete the music from library and keep it in iTunes media folder.
Don’t waste your time manually deleting those files. Get the one-stop show to your iTunes health. Get iMyFone iMyFone TunesFix.