Apple, I love you, but what the fuck are you thinking? Keynote ’06 takes up 1.1 GB of disk space. One program takes up one gigabyte of disk space. One program I own only to view files created by others, not to create myself. That one beast takes up 1/80th of my hard drive.

Why?

Looking inside I find 62 MB of private frameworks, your typical scattered TIFF files, and 1.03 GB of themes. Why so many themes? Each theme has five variations, all variations due to differing screen sizes. Five variations of a 60 MB theme. Up to five variations for each of 27 themes. Every variation designed for one screen size.

Use vector art, damn it.

But Keynote isn’t alone. When I get a new computer these days I have to delete 2 GB of Garage Band loops I’ll never use, 1.9 GB of iDVD themes I’ll never use, 2.5 GB of even more Apple Loops I’ll never use, 800 MB of printer drivers I’ll never use, 1 GB of crappy bundled applications and demos, and then periodically trash the gigabyte of precompiled headers that Xcode crufts my system up with.

The reason for all of this crap is that there’s a really evil mentality going around Apple these days: They have the disk space, so use it. “They” have it. Us. So Apple includes fifteen language packs in every program they install (solve with Monolingual), up to three architectures in every binary (PPC32, PPC64, Intel; Monolingual also removes these), and installs all kinds of cruft and crap in /Library that no one will ever use, and keeps putting it there. My cache folders overfloweth with thine application spew, Apple.

Just because we have the space on our system doesn’t mean you get to abuse it with a multi-DVD OS install (yes, the new Intel machines come with two install DVDs full of useless bundled crap). I got an 80 GB drive because I had 75 GB of stuff to put on it. It’s not your space to go willy-nilly dropping ten gigs of useless crap into every time I turn around. I don’t speak umpteen languages (just English and C), I don’t have both a Core and a G5 in this thing, and I barely view media much less make it. Why are you installing all of this crap?

The answer is one of several:

1. Because it makes the system “full-featured.”
2. Because it’s easier than customizing it during the install.
3. Because most people have more storage than they need.
4. Because it makes for a better experience to have it all together and installed.

I want nothing to do with any of these. As-is the very first thing I do with a new computer is wipe the fucker and install a base OS with no frills. No languages, no print drivers, no fonts for languages I don’t speak. I extract OmniOutliner from the install media and then put the rest of my programs in. Then I run Monolingual and shave off a gig. Then I root through /Library to nix anything that drifted in.

As time passes, I kick up WhatSize and hunt down things that are taking over my system (primary culprits: my downloads folder, my user’s cache folder, the system cache folder [Xcode]).

It works for me, but it’s only now just clicked that this is the crap I’m doing every time I get a computer. This is crazy. Why do I have to fight against the tide of bulky-ass programs and lazy designers? And why the fuck is the system using TIFFs instead of PNGs?! Even compressed, TIFF is huge. I took the About.tiff file from Keynote (52K) and saved it as a PNG in Preview and it shed 12K instantly. Imagine doing that everywhere.

Apple’s stuck in this mentality that big is okay and that you shouldn’t optimize for size, but, damn it, I want my drive back. This is getting fucking outrageous. I can understand having a lot of code, or essential graphics for widgets, but 4 GB of audio loops for a program only one-in-ten will ever even open is just stupid.

How to Fix It

Monolingual. Run it and remove the stuff you’ll never use.

WhatSize. Run it and see what else lurks in your system and eliminate it.

How to Prevent It

Application designers: Respect your users. Are your translations bigger than the binary itself? Let users download them separately and install them via the Get Info window. Localize some instructions on that and put them on your webpage. Hell, make a simple installer that optionally installs the other languages if you want to make it easy, but don’t include them by default.

Do you include a lot of graphics in your programs? Compress them and use smaller image types than TIFF. Even with LZW, TIFF is larger than most other formats.

Do what you can to keep your size down, your application drag-installable, and don’t overuse disk caching and data sprawl. Store what you need, expire the old stuff, and keep your footprint low. Please.

As noted in the comments: Do not run Monolingual on an Intel Mac in the default configuration! Uncheck all architectures slated for removal before running. Removing the PPC code in /System and /Library will kill Rosetta.