Apple remove dir - user.sparsebundle

Question

The Sparse bundle directory in my Mac Snow Leopard is taking lot of space.

I don't have an option to disable FileVault on my Mac. Would like to know the after affects of removing the sparse bundle directory

Answer 1

You can disable filevault on your mac System Pref -> Security -> Turn off filevault. But it requires almost 2x disk space to decrypt all the data that your filevault contains !

It you delete the sparsebundle directory you will lost all the data contained in file vault !

If you can access to file vault, I recommend you to delete big files from it and usually on logout Mac OS x resize file vault allocated disk space. Then you can disable it !

Edit :

If you want to start from fresh :

• Format your hard drive an reinstall Snow Leopard to have a clean system
• Try to delete sparsebundle, you will lose your data and I don't tink SL will be so happy with it and let you start a new File Vault
• Try to delete the user accounts associated with filevault (usually filevault contains user home folders) and recreate them afterwards

Answer 2

The sparsebundle for your user requires as much space as the data in your user directory, because these are its contents. Sometimes it gets larger, that's why it gets compacted during logout.

If you want to see what happens when you delete it: Create a new user and log in. That's an approximation of the data you will have left, of course Mac OS X might take issue with the file being gone as well.

Move all your data (contents Documents, iTunes, Movies, Pictures, etc.; NOT Library) to an external hard drive, log out, let it compact. Now it should be smaller. Turn off FileVault, and when it has finished, copy your data back to its original location.