Monolingual

1.8.2

1.8.2

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I have used Monolingual for almost since the inception of OS X. It is one of the most reliable pieces of sw out there. Yes other programers has included the features into their programs but that is just more of a tribute to the original. I have even tried older versions of it and they still run because he stuck to the Apple guidelines. But one word of warning, do not strip the languages from Office 2008. If you do, you will not be able to update it anymore. Why, ask MS those schmuck do things I will never know why. Also be carful when you try to slim down your apps by removing the fat binaries. Some of them WILL not work after you do it & will no longer boot. I had to reload many apps after trying this feature so user beware. I reviewed Monolingual back in 2003 or so and gave it an outstanding review. Over the years it has evolved very nicely and I hope it stays functional for PPC users as well as Intel users. What seems like a minor utility can save gigs just in languages alone if you never ran such a program. I took office 2008 out of my app folder so it would not touch it. One addition would be nice to add in the pref. An exclusion tab where you can tell it what not to touch as it works. To me that is the only thing missing and with the problem of reducing fat binaries well that is the problem with the sw and really not Mono. That is just how the software is designed. If does not see the full pkg it will not load which is a pity and waist of space. One last thing, stability, in all my years of using it it has never crashed in the middle of an operation. It is free so how can you go wrong. End of Line... Note: Robert Lewis is a Freelance writer looking for work.

I tried this today. I ran it in the mode to remove unused architectures. I removed all except the Intel arch's keeping both 64bit and 32bit.

After running a few minutes, the finder froze and I had to restert finder. The dock still was not working right so I rebooted and used AppDelete to remove all of it.

I see in the FAQ that some things should not be touched, but there seems to be no way to disable touching Adobe apps, for example. (At least I do not see it in the preferences.) It would be nice to be able to select one app to see what it does without going thru the entire disk, but that seems not to be an option.

I also notice that even on applications where nothing is removed, it changes the date stamps of the files thus making them have to be re-backed up.

Overall it just seems too dangerous to me for the minimal amount of savings. That said, I am not sure how much it got done because I had to kill it due to the finder issues, but it probably did what it claims to do, otherwise it would be one star. Sorry. (10.13.6 is my OS, 1.8.2 is my version)

I tried to install 1.8.2 and got a window saying "Failed To Install Helper Utility." I have an iMac running macOS Mojave 10.14.3. Doesn't rate a star at all.

I did a spotlight search for any previous "Monolingual" files and found nothing. I tried to install 1.8.1 and got a window saying "Failed To Install Helper Utility." I have an iMac running Mojave 10.14.2. Doesn't rate a star at all.

Absolutely worthless. I am using Mojave and Monolingual still does not work. It still cannot install the helper app required when using previous versions, including this one.

Just a question: is version 1.8.0 fully compatible with Mojave 10.14.1? Thank you for your answers.

"1 byte" might be old, but just go into preferences and tell it to put the removed files in the trash. You'll find a bunch when it's done.

I appreciate the author providing this useful app, but wish he would maintain it. "1 byte" removed is getting old.

I like this app. Great work.

Version 1.8 does NOT work. It always claims it has removed 1 byte... This is hardly possible, as either it removes ressources, which use more space, or there is nothing to remove. When using version 1.4.5, which is much older, 56 MB were removed...

although v 1.8 appears to work it always reports only 1 byte of removed files. i run it under MacOs X 10.13.4 developers beta v. 5

Still does not work. I said this on 9 Feb 17. I get this trying to install it: Failed to install helper utility.

Beware! Installing this version also installs Clean My Mac without asking. Clean my Mac is very difficult to remove, is a joke, and sneaky installs should be reported! Stay away.

Still not possible to install helper utility, OMG.

the new version 178 still does not remove zh-Hans.lproj/zh-Hant.lproj. why can't it be fixed??

Still does not work with version 1.7.6.

1.7.5 fails to install helper app as did the previous version! (macOS 10.12.2 (16C67))

I am running macOS Sierra ver 10.12.2 I downloaded the new Monolingual ver 1.7.5 The app still won't install the "HELPER UTILITY."

Part 1 - I am running macOS Sierra ver 10.12.2 (16C67) I downloaded the new Monolingual ver 1.7.4. I got a different message. It was titled "Warning." "The following disk image couldn't be opened." It listed the Monolingual dmg as" Resource Busy."
Part 2 - I closed the warning and double clicked on the dmg. This time it opened.
Part 3 - The app still doesn't install the "HELPER UTILITY."
Part 4 - I totally removed the old app: 12 files, 28.7 MB.
Part 5 - Repeat of Part 3.

Still does not work with macOS Sierra 10.12.1. It gives me "Failed to install helper utility" when I try to use the app.

The version that works best for me in El Cap (10.11.4) is 1.6.7, but Monolingual's biggest fault is that it hasn't got option for the removal of lproj files in areas protected by SIP for those of us who are running with SIP disabled.

Please!

versions 172 and 173 work with 10.11.4 generally OK, but they do not remove zh-Hans.lproj and zh-Hant.lproj localizations and i think Latin may be also not removed

Simply does not work under 10.11.1. Keeps asking to install Helper. Hope this gets fixed. I have been using it for years, and when working, its great.

Doesn't work for me in El Cap. Sits on the screen and does nothing. Maybe because of SIP?

mine totally does not work after upgrading the system to 10.11.1

Since upgrading, Monolingual 1.7.1 doesn't work on my MacBook Pro 2009 (MacOS 10.10.5). "Failed to install helper utility" appears everytime. ;-( But Monolingual 1.6.7 works fine... I don't know what to do. Thank you for helping

Latest (1.6.7) version simply does't work from an non Admin account, even when in the Applications folder. Requests Admin rights to install a helper tool, and then does nothing. Sadness. Haven't tried from an Admin account, but why should I have to? Never used to have to.

I dunno. I didn't try this app, I'll admit. But I DO know that removing language files from Adobe apps like Creative Suite can render a lot of those apps useless. Like Dreamweaver and Photoshop. So be careful. Aren't these language strings also built into the OS? I mean, I'd like a transparent dock, but anything that affects core function seems dangerous. Am I wrong about this? Wouldn't be the first time . . .

Wanna break your system and apps? Give this a try!

Looking forward to the update that includes how much space is saved by removing useless language files. After 5 minutes and heaps of files moved to the bin .. it always tells me Space saved - Zero KB I have to go back at least 2 years for a version that actually showed this. Otherwise a very handy app .. so cheers to the Dev :D

v 1.6.6 crashes when located NOT in applications folder (under 10.10.3 at least). also it does not remove some languages. finally, and it is an old bug, it requires inputting password twice if it is located in a custom folder. not clear why it can't be fixed already!

Just a few things you should make sure you do before using this app: 1) Make sure you back up your system before removing the extra languages. 2) Go into Monolingual Preference and check, "Move language files to trash." so you don't have to hunt down the folder with the language files you removed.

Can someone with Adobe CS6 on Yosemite and has used this please let me and others know if it worked ok? An earlier version of Monolingual removed a file that Acrobat required and I had to do a complete re-install of CS6. Any experiences (good or bad) with CS6 on Yosemite welcomed.

Running 10.10.2 - Just installed latest version 1.6.3 and it still crashes on start up. This is a shame as I have been using Monolingual for longer than i can remember :(

There is a problem with this app. It doesn't reflect that you delete anything. As an example, I ran this app. I had all the languages checked except English and English (United States). Don't know if there is a difference. I then emptied the trash before running the app. When it got done it showed: Files removed. Space saved: Zero KB. But, if you do a get info on the trash it showed two sets of figures: Across from the trash icon it showed: 1.57 GB Under General it showed: 1,566,440,145 bytes (2.36 GB on disk) for 339,043 items I don't know what the true amount of deletion is. Maybe that is an Apple Inc. problem. Anyone know?

Adding items to ignore list causes the application to crash. Is this going to be fixed soon?

So I have a brand new iMac running Yosemite and I just nuked it with this app. What I did is run this app with everything selected except English (United States) and now I can't open probably half of my apps. I've reinstalled OS X multiple times and it doesn't help. I hope that there's someone out there that can tell me what I need to do!

The description says it's for OS 10.10 but the system requirements say 10.7. It certainly doesn't open with my OS, so somebody was Lion. 0 stars.

I use this program whenever updating to to a new operating system or buying a new laptop. So about once every few months. My preference would be not have to use programs such as Monolingual and Xslimmer (and don't think they make a huge difference in speeding up the computer) but they only take about a minute to run and can often save several GB's worth of data.

Doesn't this break the codesigning of an app? Because anything you change/remove does break the Gatekeeper codesign and the app will not launch anymore.

Very valuable program; though, developer, is there any way you could eliminate the need for the password entry? Eliminating that step would be welcomed.

Beware!!! About a year ago, I made the mistake of choosing all languages to be removed, which turned my MacBook Pro into a temporary doorstop. Make sure you leave your preferred language intact:-( Fortunately I had backed up just before using it, so could revert:-)

Using OSX 10.9.2 the OS tells me the app is damaged and can't be opened. I DL from developer sire and same result.

Great piece of software except for just released 1.5.9 which won't load the helper. When attempting to load the helper it loops back to the main window. Removing all related files and trying again doesn't solve the problem. Reverted back to 1.5.8 which works great. Other than that, it's great.

Just making a comment here - I'm certainly not trying to put down this software! People are saying that this saves them several hundred MBs, and I pretty much can't remember the last time I had a computer with less than 250GB. So we're talking about saving around 0.25% of disk space (for people like me I suppose). The vast majority of my hard drive consumption is in media files and those can't be trimmed. Trimming code signed programs is always a bit of a risk, and there are definitely programs that can't be trimmed (and you often find that out the hard way) and you're rolling the dice with system stability (especially when upgrading the OS). The unix OS (including OS X) needs to keep about a good 5% (or more) of available disk space for virtual memory, cache files, temporary files, and other such things. If you're cutting it that close, it's time for a new hard drive. Just saying...

Wow--great; works flawlessly on Mavericks. Ingmar--thanks for all your effort!

Monolingual appears to work on Mavericks with one small issue....when you launch monolingual you have to repeatedly re-select languages you want removed; apparently after you close monolingual it fails to remember the languages that were selected for removal on prior occasions.