# Receipts folder



## aicul (Nov 23, 2005)

I've noticed that OSX keeps trtack of installations in the "Macintosh HD/library/Receipts" folder.

This seems like a good idea until I checked the size of this folder... 100+Mb!!!

Does anyone know if there is a problem if I delete the contents of this folder?


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## MisterMe (Nov 23, 2005)

It depends on what you delete. Receipts for current apps store the proper permissions settings. Without those receipts, you cannot fix permissions. It should, however, be OK to delete receipts for apps that are no longer installed.


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## ElDiabloConCaca (Nov 23, 2005)

I would recommend not deleting anything out of that folder unless you are absolutely sure the application is no longer installed, like MisterMe said.

Be aware that there may be stuff in there that you _think_ you don't need, but really do -- for example, stuff like "BSD.pkg" you may think you don't need anymore, but if that one gets deleted, you cannot repair permissions at all.

In addition, Software Update also checks this folder to see if you need an update or not to Mac OS X and various applications, which can cause problems if you remove the wrong receipt file.

My recommendation would be to leave that folder alone.  100MB is not a lot of space, considering Mac OS X takes about 3 - 4GB of space.


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## sourcehound (Nov 23, 2005)

aicul said:
			
		

> I've noticed that OSX keeps trtack of installations in the "Macintosh HD/library/Receipts" folder.
> 
> This seems like a good idea until I checked the size of this folder... 100+Mb!!!
> 
> Does anyone know if there is a problem if I delete the contents of this folder?



This folder is vital to your computer running correctly: for example, the repair permissions process uses the contents of this folder. I wrote an application called Mac HelpMate http://www.macworkshops.com/machelpmate that provides a GUI to inspect the contents of each receipt. It's very informative and can help you decide which receipts are part of OS X and which are "extras." However, I would reccomend against delted ANY of them.

Sourcehound, author of Mac HelpMate:

http://www.macworkshops.com/machelpmate


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