by Dan Moren
Xcising Xcode
When running the slew of updates yesterday, a new version of Xcode popped up on my MacBook Air. Which, naturally, reminded me I had Xcode installed on it, despite the fact that I’ve never really used it other than for a few one-off tasks. Xcode takes up a lot of space and–really, more annoyingly, means I either have to install updates or be constantly plagued by that notification badge on the Mac App Store. So I decided to uninstall it.
Now, to uninstall something you can generally just delete the app from the Applications folder, and you’re all set. Xcode, though, is a little more complicated. After looking around a bit, I found MacPaw’s tutorial for rooting out all the development-related files that hide in various places. Naturally, the company would prefer you use its CleanMyMac app for the job, and while that might be more efficient, it graciously also provides the instructions for removing everything manually. I ran through them, and they appear to work just fine–plus they free up a decent amount of disk space.
One note: Among the last instructions in that guide is a suggestion to delete the contents of ~/Library/Application Support/MobileSync/Backup. That happens to be where backups of your iOS devices made in iTunes are stored, which you may not wish to delete–so just keep that in mind. (I didn’t delete them, and I don’t think it will cause any problems.)