I just noticed that on my iMac the Mobile Applications folder is taking 7.49 GB of space, with many many older versions of the apps.
Is there a way to clean it out other than removing them one at a time?
Is that even a good idea?
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Robert Poland
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How Do I Delete Old Versions Of Apps On the iMac?
Comments: One Response to “How Do I Delete Old Versions Of Apps On the iMac?”
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I can't think of a good reason NOT to clean this out, if you have the time and are short on disk space.
The proper way to do it would be from within iTunes. You can look at the List view of your Apps inside the Library portion of iTunes. You can even sort by size, so you can focus on the apps that take up the most space.
Now I would make sure to only delete apps that you are no longer using on your iOS devices. Should not even be installed on your iOS devices, otherwise they will simply sync back to your iTunes library the new time you sync.
So if you are sure that the app is no longer on any iOS app, and you want to delete it, then you can do so in iTunes.
But, you mention older versions. You may have noticed, as I have, that sometimes you see multiple versions of the app in the Mobile Applications folder. I suspect this happens when you have multiple iOS devices, and one isn't used as much. For instance, your old iPad may have version 2.3 of app X, and your new iPad may have version 2.6 of the same app X. So iTunes keeps both, so it can restore the old iPad if needed. At least that's my theory.
In that case, if you are sure that you are no longer using that app on any of your currently-maintained iOS devices, then I would delete it manually from the Mobile Applications folder.
I can't see the harm. You still have that app marked as "purchased" in your iTunes account. So you can always re-download it.