Safe to delete old version of Live without affecting current

[pan9]

My application folder for Live 8.2.1 is about 2 gigs, whereas the new install of 8.2.2 is about 500 mg. I notice that my old 8.2.1 install includes almost 2 gigs of default .alps, whereas the new install has about 75 mg. Presumably it would be safe to delete the old install and just leave the new? I'm assuming all the old alp content got installed into my live library, and all these alp are left over from initial installs.

Anyone got the knowledge/experience about this?

Thanks

Pan

[abl385]

I'm also interested in hearing the answer to that. There are so many folders inside my Live application folder.. I had bought Live Intro last year and from then onwards I also bought Live 8 and Suite 8 (the downloadable versions). Now I have Live 8.2.2. Would it be safe to delete all the other folders apart from the newest one (Live 8.2.2)?

[Angstrom]

you can delete the application folder, or uninstall the application (I dont know about macs but the PC version has an uninstaller).

All the versions of Live, including point versions are self contained and they operate separately from each other.
Just leave the library alone, do not delete that!

[pan9]

Thanks for your answer. I'm going to go ahead and press 'delete'!

[ze2be]

I delete old libraries as well. Because I don't have space for all the gigabytes we get from the endless amount of updates. I don't save anything in the library. I save my devices, racks and tracks in a different folder.

[Angstrom]

"old libraries"
eh? there should only be one library,unless you saved a backup.

I guess you don't have session drums, EIC, etc then - because if you deleted session drums you wouldn't be getting them back unless you dug out your installer DVD.

Also, the library contains all the grooves for the groove pool, and many other things. not a great idea to delete the library. not at all.

Note: I don't save my files, songs there, but if you ever save a rack, or a device preset ... that's where they go. Deleting your library WILL delete your own presets, along with all the presets for Live's devices.

a very odd move.

[H20nly]

yep. careful deleting...

try renaming it to <folder_name>.old or some such. then open your tracks and give everything you can think of a go. make sure things are working as expected. if you have some type of duplicate then you won't miss it. if you are/were (planning on) deleting the wrong folder... you'll realize why you don't want to... before its too late, then all you have to do is remove .old from the name and you'll be back in business.

[ze2be]

My bad, you are absolutely right!

I had an issue earlier where I had 2 libraries installed, and it lead to some confusion. Sorry about that. I recently deleted a lot of older Live versions, because I was running out of system disk space. I do find it odd that Live uses 1.8gb by it self, when the library uses 3.2gb. 1.8 gigabytes, that's a lot of pages of code! In the program folder, the largest folder I found was: DefaultPackages: 1.49gb.

I keep rack presets in a different folder then the library. Just to be safe because I have accidentally lost stuff from the library before. I create a rack of everything, and save the rack to a secure folder. This is kept together with my projects and samples, and thus its easy to back up from one place.

Actually I should perhaps start backing up the Ableton library as well. But it seems kind of overkill to back up 3.2 gigabytes, when all I have created there is a few grooves (7 midi files) and a few slicing presets.

[Angstrom]

yes, if you download the update "with content" it comes with a big fat resources folder, full of packed up default library packages.
if your library gets a bit mangled and you choose "repair library" from preferences then this is the store closet where the compressed packages are kept for that eventuality.
If you are running low on space I would suggest advanced users could go in there and get rid of some packages, but then again ... I'd hate to be responsible for a beginner saying "why doesn't repair library work!?" / "why is my Live version all mangled".

tldr; if you don't know what you are doing, just uninstall older versions of Live using the tools provided and don't touch anything else - its a bad feeling when you delete something you shouldn't. Especially if you don't have a recent backup!

[abl385]

By default when I install a new update, I guess that the extra racks, sounds and the rest are stored somewhere in the Library folder of my Mac. Think it must be Library->Application Support->Ableton (that folder is ~13gb and consists of folders of all the versions that I've owned-ALSO there's another folder in there entitled Library which has templates, grooves, presets everything really). So if that's the case, wouldn't it be alright to delete older update folders that I copy-pasted inside my Applications->Live folder? It has nothing to do with libraries and launch-ability, right? I no longer use them anyway.. In order to launch Live I only use the application file I downloaded from the latest update.

Pretty sure it works like this, I just don't want to risk it. If anyone could help that'd be c 8)l.

Curious to hear Pan's reply as well. I will take it as though something went wrong if he doesn't reply

[pan9]

I moved my 8.2.1 folder onto a backup drive and deleted it off my macbook, and 8.2.2 works fine without it. No problems at all so far, including working with some old songs built in 8.2.1

Pan