Mac OS X Leopard - ARCAism

Cache Files, Preferences, and Support Files
CHAPTER 6 COMMON LEOPARD MAINTENANCE 131
The first place to look for leftover files is in your ~/Library folder, particularly in the Caches
folder, the Preferences folder, and the Application Support folder.
The Application Support folder is a common place for applications to store all sorts of items
that help them function. This should be stop one. Just take a look and see if the application you
are removing has a support folder here (it will usually have the same name as the application
itself.) If so, you may delete it.
NOTE Before you delete support files, make sure you have any information that the application
was storing for you backed up.
NOTE Some applications will create their own support folder in your ~/Library folder rather
than in the Application Support subfolder.
After you clean out any application support files, check the ~/Library/Caches folder. Here,
many applications (especially network-enabled apps) store temporary cache files. These can take
up lots of space, so you don’t want to leave any unused cache files lying around.
NOTE It’s not a bad idea to delete the caches of all applications every now and then. Just
make sure that the application isn’t running when you delete the folder. The application should
just create a new cache the next time it needs one. Cleaning out these folders can add a fairly
significant amount of disk space.
The next place to look is your ~/Library/Preferences folder. This folder keeps track of all
your personal preferences for all your applications and many other system features; and every
application, even if just launched once and closed, is likely to have created a file here. Finding the
appropriate preference file is a bit tricky. Traditionally, there was no specific naming convention
for preference files, so they were usually named after the application. Additionally, certain software
developers would (and still do) create a folder here to store the preferences for all their
applications (because some applications share preferences among similar applications). Today,
however, there is a specific naming convention for most preference files that uses a reverse toplevel
domain for the developer, followed by the name of the application, followed by some
sub-information if needed. So, for example, all the preference files for Apple products would follow
the format com.apple.appname.subpref. Usually, these will end with a .plist extension
indicating the type of file is a property list. Once you locate the appropriate preference for your
deleted application, you may likewise delete it.
NOTE Preference files are interesting to take a peek at. If you installed the Xcode tools, a special
application, /Developer/Applications/Utilities/Property List Editor, was installed
that makes browsing and editing these .plist files easy. Most .plist files are written in XML,
which can be viewed in any text editor as well. While you should exercise some caution with
preference files, you may discover preferences for certain applications that aren’t otherwise
accessible (hidden preferences).
NOTE While it’s not recommended that you regularly delete a preference file, if you do mistakenly
delete one, it essentially resets the application back to the first time you used it. With
some apps, this may cause no noticeable difference; with others, you may need to go through
the setup or registration process again. While this may be inconvenient, it’s rarely a big
problem.
NOTE Occasionally, an application may create some of these files in the /Library folder as
well. Feel free to delete these as well.