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Remove Languages - El Capitan
#36348 10/08/15 08:18 PM
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Douglas Offline OP
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Just noticed that I cannot remove Language Files from any of the 'core' apps installed with El Capitan. Anyone know how I remove all the useless language files? When I try to delete them get a message that says they cannot be deleted because they are used by OSX.

Also noticed that I cannot delete any useless, at least to me, apps like Chess, Calculator and Stickies. Would like to do that as well.

Thanks,

Re: Remove Languages - El Capitan
Douglas #36349 10/08/15 08:30 PM
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I believe you can do all that (as I'll eventually want to do) by disabling and subsequently re-enabling"rootless".

A search for "disable rootless os x" will turn up any number of "how-tos".


The new Great Equalizer is the SEND button.

In Memory of Harv: Those who can make you believe absurdities can make you commit atrocities. ~Voltaire
Re: Remove Languages - El Capitan
artie505 #36351 10/08/15 10:01 PM
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I have El Cap installed on a separate partition on an external HD so I can test several older applications that have not been updated lately. I can boot into the internal HD on my Mini, with Mavericks, and then delete the language files and also useless apps like Chess, Calculator and Stickies in El Cap.

Once I install El Cap on my internal HD and clone it my external HD I guess I'll be able to boot back and forth to delete language files and other stuff.

Re: Remove Languages - El Capitan
Douglas #36354 10/09/15 12:16 AM
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If I'm following what you've got in mind, it sounds like it won't work.

It doesn't seem like you ought to be able to delete stuff that's protected by "rootless" just because you're booted into another volume, but you'll have to wait for someone who's running El Cap to kick in their 2¢ to be certain.

Last edited by artie505; 10/09/15 12:37 AM. Reason: Better wording

The new Great Equalizer is the SEND button.

In Memory of Harv: Those who can make you believe absurdities can make you commit atrocities. ~Voltaire
Re: Remove Languages - El Capitan
artie505 #36363 10/09/15 04:15 AM
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I have El Cap installed on a partition on an external HD. This afternoon I was using my Mini with Mavericks on the internal HD and cranked up the external HD and was able to delete the Chess, Calculator and Stickie apps with no problem and was also able to open a couple of core apps and delete the language files with no problem. I then booted in the El Cap partition with no problems and the apps that I deleted the language files operated normally.

Re: Remove Languages - El Capitan
Douglas #36364 10/09/15 04:50 AM
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That's good news...along the lines of booting into OS 9 to delete stuff from OS X...would never have thought it could be done. cool


The new Great Equalizer is the SEND button.

In Memory of Harv: Those who can make you believe absurdities can make you commit atrocities. ~Voltaire
Re: Remove Languages - El Capitan
artie505 #36379 10/09/15 04:39 PM
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Originally Posted By: artie505
That's good news...along the lines of booting into OS 9 to delete stuff from OS X...would never have thought it could be done. cool


Just to be clear, "booting into OS 10.9…"

Although, who knows? Booting into OS 9.x might also work! wink


On a Mac since 1984.
Currently: 24" M1 iMac, M2 Pro Mac mini with 27" BenQ monitor, M2 Macbook Air, MacOS 14.x; iPhones, iPods (yes, still) and iPads.
Re: Remove Languages - El Capitan
Ira L #36390 10/09/15 07:19 PM
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I said precisely what I meant, Ira.

I was referring back to the early days of OS X when we used to boot into an OS 9 partition to delete stuff we couldn't touch otherwise.


The new Great Equalizer is the SEND button.

In Memory of Harv: Those who can make you believe absurdities can make you commit atrocities. ~Voltaire
Re: Remove Languages - El Capitan
artie505 #36398 10/10/15 03:05 PM
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Good enough. smirk

But that raises the question of booting into a pre-10.11 (e.g., 10.9 or 10.10) partition to accomplish the same thing. Possible?


On a Mac since 1984.
Currently: 24" M1 iMac, M2 Pro Mac mini with 27" BenQ monitor, M2 Macbook Air, MacOS 14.x; iPhones, iPods (yes, still) and iPads.
Re: Remove Languages - El Capitan
Ira L #36400 10/10/15 03:59 PM
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Originally Posted By: Ira L
But that raises the question of booting into a pre-10.11 (e.g., 10.9 or 10.10) partition to accomplish the same thing. Possible?

Why don't you try it and let us know?


If we knew what it was we were doing, it wouldn't be called research, would it?

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Re: Remove Languages - El Capitan
joemikeb #36401 10/10/15 07:55 PM
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Originally Posted By: joemikeb
Originally Posted By: Ira L
But that raises the question of booting into a pre-10.11 (e.g., 10.9 or 10.10) partition to accomplish the same thing. Possible?

Why don't you try it and let us know?

Douglas has already reported, in post #36363, having successfully done just that.

Last edited by artie505; 10/11/15 04:06 AM. Reason: Cleanup

The new Great Equalizer is the SEND button.

In Memory of Harv: Those who can make you believe absurdities can make you commit atrocities. ~Voltaire
Re: Remove Languages - El Capitan
artie505 #36404 10/11/15 04:03 PM
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I spent the better part of yesterday afternoon and evening installing and setting up El Capitan on my Mini internal HD. So far the only glitch I have encountered is NO alerts sounds in Mail for new mail, checking mail etc.

This morning I booted into my Mavericks, 10.9.5, clone on my external HD. Navigated to the Applications folder for El Capitan on my internal HD and proceeded to delete all of the language files for all the newly installed/updated apps. Also deleted Chess, Calculator and Stickies.

Rebooted into El Capitan on my internal HD and so far as I can tell all of the apps are opening and operating normally.

Re: Remove Languages - El Capitan
Douglas #36407 10/12/15 01:00 AM
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Too bad that Monolingual can't do its job across volumes. frown

Interesting concept...maintaining a pre-El Cap volume to get around SIP without disabling it. cool

Edit: Developers would have to buy into it, of course.

Last edited by artie505; 10/12/15 01:02 AM.

The new Great Equalizer is the SEND button.

In Memory of Harv: Those who can make you believe absurdities can make you commit atrocities. ~Voltaire
Re: Remove Languages - El Capitan
Douglas #36440 10/14/15 10:42 PM
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We seem to be like-minded in terms of wanting to eliminate unnecessary language files, so you may find this thought appealing...

EasyFind (wonderful freeware) can see across volumes, so if you launch it in Mavericks and search for "lproj" in Files & Folders, Package Contents, and Invisible Files & Folders in El Cap it ought to turn up every extraneous language file and, judging by your experience so far, you ought to be able to delete them by simply selecting them and clicking on "Delete".

I wonder if it will ultimately turn out to be that the best tool for dealing with SIP is simply an earlier version of OS X?


The new Great Equalizer is the SEND button.

In Memory of Harv: Those who can make you believe absurdities can make you commit atrocities. ~Voltaire
Re: Remove Languages - El Capitan
artie505 #36442 10/15/15 12:05 AM
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From my experience you don't need to worry about SIP for non-core El Cap language removal. After I upgraded, I downloaded Numbers and Pages and was able to delete the language files from those 2 apps from within El Cap by just doing a right click and accessing 'Show Package Contents'. Also worked for Chrome and a couple of other apps I've downloaded.

Re: Remove Languages - El Capitan
Douglas #36443 10/15/15 12:24 AM
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Yeah, that works, but not for the SIP protected components of OS X, and you've still got /Library and your other apps to go.

Plus, I'm not the least bit inclined to go through apps, etc. one by one when there's a tool that can do it in bulk.

I mean, if you're into deleting lproj files, what's the point of anything short of all of them?

Last edited by artie505; 10/15/15 01:23 AM. Reason: Expand

The new Great Equalizer is the SEND button.

In Memory of Harv: Those who can make you believe absurdities can make you commit atrocities. ~Voltaire
Re: Remove Languages - El Capitan
artie505 #36444 10/15/15 04:09 AM
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Douglas Offline OP
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I guess I'm old fashioned and/or suspicious. I like to see exactly what is being deleted etc. I used to use an old app, no longer developed, called Youpi Optimizer that could delete language files either en mass or in individual apps.

I actually went through all the El Cap core files, in Applications Folder, and deleted all the language files manually, took about an hour. Some time in the next few days I'll do the same for the Utilities Folder. Yes I know there are language files in lots of other places but I do what I can do to free up space. Maybe I'm just a glutton for punishment.

Re: Remove Languages - El Capitan
artie505 #36445 10/15/15 11:13 AM
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Quote:
...if you launch it in Mavericks and search for "lproj" in Files & Folders, Package Contents, and Invisible Files & Folders in El Cap it ought to turn up every extraneous language file and, judging by your experience so far, you ought to be able to delete them by simply selecting them and clicking on "Delete".

You might want to take care not to delete en.lproj files, though: if a developer's native language is not English, doing so will remove the English localization resources from the app bundle and the interface will default back to whatever language the app was written in.



dkmarsh—member, FineTunedMac Co-op Board of Directors
Re: Remove Languages - El Capitan
dkmarsh #36446 10/15/15 11:24 AM
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I've never given any thought to the difference between English.lproj and en.lproj, so thanks for clarifying it.

Even without realizing precisely why, though, I've always instinctively left both file types intact.


The new Great Equalizer is the SEND button.

In Memory of Harv: Those who can make you believe absurdities can make you commit atrocities. ~Voltaire
Re: Remove Languages - El Capitan
artie505 #36449 10/15/15 11:52 AM
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yep, monolingual and the others basically go through all your apps and nuke all the lproj except your currently selected language (en.lproj for most of us)

Then we have the sister apps that call built-in functions to strip fat binaries to remove unnecessary architectures... not sure that's of any use nowadays?


I work for the Department of Redundancy Department
Re: Remove Languages - El Capitan
Virtual1 #36451 10/15/15 12:04 PM
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I've set two exclusions in Monolingual...English and English (United States).

Most of my lproj files are English.lproj rather than en.lproj (1,367 of 1,391); the en files are both Apple and 3rd party.


The new Great Equalizer is the SEND button.

In Memory of Harv: Those who can make you believe absurdities can make you commit atrocities. ~Voltaire
Re: Remove Languages - El Capitan
Douglas #47763 02/02/18 05:00 PM
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I found this free program - MONOLINGUAL, used it and its working fine! BUT BEWARE, be sure to chose right, if not you can only reinstall the deleted language by reinstalling OSX !!!!

https://ingmarstein.github.io/Monolingual/


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