[tacvbo83]

Can I erase the contents of the HD->Library->Receipts?

[chucker]

No, that would break Software Update and permissions repair.

[tacvbo83]

Originally Posted by chucker No, that would break Software Update and permissions repair.

Ok, thanks for the info.

[chucker]

To elaborate a little:

The "receipts" are essentially "stub" versions of installation packages, containing BOM (bill of materials) files and some other metadata. They give Software Update (and permissions repair) the necessary info to figure out what you have installed, where, at which version, and more.

So if you were to, say, delete Safari.pkg, Software Update could no longer find (much less install) updates for Safari (it wouldn't even assume you to have it installed at all), and permissions repair wouldn't know any longer what permissions Safari ought to have.

[thegeriatric]

Wow. And I thought a receipt was just a bit of paper you got when you bought something !! Shows what I know. Not a lot obviously............slinks quietly away..............

[King Kovifor]

Originally Posted by chucker No, that would break Software Update and permissions repair.

Can I remove things like:

MacOSXUpdate10.3.4.pkg

I no longer have 10.3.x installed on this computer? Or programs I don't have?

[Brad]

Why do you want to remove these receipts in the first place? They only take up a few measly kilobytes of space and are never seen by the end user unless you deliberately go looking for them.

[King Kovifor]

I have less than 5 GB of space on my computer. I'm trying to delete anything that I can off of it.

[Brad]

In that case, you'd be better off removing a few big files than those tiny things.

Try Disk Inventory X to get a great visual on what's using up your space.

[digitaldave]

I've often wondered what the contents of the receipts folder was all about, thanks for the info .