Tons of leftover files from iLife...

[Dreambird]

Thank Paddy,

Those links were interesting and informative... I feel a fair bit more secure now... notworthy:

The DevonThink page has a thing or two that I want actually... a contextual menu in Finder! I've missed that since leaving the Classic MacOSs

[Dreambird]

Stupid question... why does one need the .playlist files for deleted/uninstalled apps in Private>var>db>BootCaches? 
 
I have deleted them and so far as I notice is "nothing"... no issues. Rather than removing them manually I'd prefer an app or terminal command.

[Dreambird]

When one finds "dead" aliases as in the original can't be found... is it best to leave them alone or delete them? In EasyFind there is also an option to Destroy them.

The fact that they are dead hasn't affected the app or whatever it refers to that I've noticed. There are a lot of iChat files where the original can't be found, I think they go back to when iMessages was iChat. They are in the dumbest places... a lot in the home library>container folders.

[Paddy]

I delete them. No point to a dead alias.

[Dreambird]

Just what I was thinking, Paddy... thank you for confirming that for me! I have to admit I'm finding these new OS's so much more complicated and they make no sense compared to older OS X versions.

IMO, these OSs are in a way, tripping over themselves... there are things like .plists for example in 2 or 3 places when it seems to me, one was sufficient, like in the ~/Library and /Library folders. There are aliases in places like Library/Containers that seem to be the ones that break... the corresponding original in the place it should be isn't there. For why?  I'd like to know. Another place I find "stuff" is in the Preferences/By Host directories... that seems to another good place for broken aliases. And then... this one blows me away... in .private/var/folders etc. They are hard to find unless you have something in particular to look for as they are spread all over and looking through every folder and sub folder on the machine is a task I wouldn't assign even to a worst enemy! 
I need to keep clearing old apps etc... I have a whole folder of stuff in my Downloads folder that are just stored items, many very old back to Classic OS's. High time to clean up here... what I really need is to learn how to search more efficiently with EasyFind where I'm not familiar with wildcards etc. and Terminal. I'm sure Terminal could turn up all the aliases in certain places so you could just go check them bit by bit. However my grasp of Terminal is pathetic... if I find a site that is reputable and has the commands in highlighted grey boxes then it is easy. I am NOT afraid of Terminal... just of entering the wrong syntax. So until I learn more myself or find the commands "handed" to me...

In one way however, the silver lining to the cloud... this expedition is proving to be good for waking up forgotten tech skills...  I like that...

The good news is that none of the busted aliases I've found so far seem to have affected anything. I found one broken one re: the saved state of my Notes.app however when I open Notes it is exactly where and the way I left it. *scratch my head** and move on... I did look around online re: the alias problem and again... I find many examples of weird things happening with aliases... broken, and other issues that seem to have started happening more with Mavericks and especially Yosemite, I never ran either however El Capitan has issues with them too. Perhaps when Apple started sticking things everywhere and all over.

One other horrible place is in both Libraries>Containers. Awful.
And on we go... 

Oh... one hint for searching out broken aliases. In ~Library/Containers... just quickly look in each one in the Data folder in Documents and Library... that is where the most are in my case anyway... worth a check. I can quickly enough get rid of many of the issue aliases. In the Library folder once you've deleted them it seems to clear all of them, in the Documents folder I have a dead iChats alias in nearly everyone I've checked.

[Dreambird]

363 broken aliases in ~/Library/Containers. All the same 6 files.
In the Documents folder... iChats and in the Library folder... QuickLook, KeyBindings, Input Methods, Compositions and Components.

Didn't take long to check and they're gone. I don't think it matters if they are there or not but if you are an insane neat freak like me I hope the info helps.

BTW there is also a folder (container) in there named: com.apple.lateragent
Why do I think that is the one that so helpfully installs new software exactly "later" when you select "check with me later"... 
I just don't take that answer... I either delete said installer or if I want it according to my idea of later... zip it and put it where you want for "later" on your terms...

[Dreambird]

Just an oddity I've found while all this is going on... I've noticed before but ignored it til now.
It would seem that I should be able to add an account to some apps like Calendar, including the "pop" account in my Email. However it will not let me... in the list of things available it's all I think they are "imap" accounts... anyway like Google etc.
I have trouble convincing the Internet Accounts prefPane to accept my pop account password when prompted... however the account is enabled and I know my password!

[Dreambird]

It looks like a lot of folders in ~/Library/Application Support/Adobe are basically empty, just hanging around and that /Library/Application/Support/Adobe is used now instead.
Same for other directories.... a neat thing would be a way to compare them so as to ditch the now defunct ones. 

Why, why, why can't Apple do something so simple as when they change something like that... just delete the useless stuff? Well, why should they? It's a hassle to them and we all have mega terabytes drives now, right? 

[Dreambird]

All said and done... I've deleted or uninstalled a boatload of old stuff... apps etc. Cleaned up in the ~/Library/Containers for broken aliases... so forth.

Just checked how much is on my SSD internal drive now and is it even possible... I dropped a whopping 100GB!!! 
I'm gobsmacked! 

I set out mainly to basically de-junk and thought if I save maybe 20GB... awesome... but 100GB...