My computer originally had Mac OS X 10.6 (Snow Leopard) installed on it but has since been upgraded to OS X 10.7 (Lion). I noticed that the /Developer
folder is still on the hard drive even though none of its files appear to have been modified for nearly two years. Is it safe to delete /Developer
or is there some reason to keep it around?
Chris Rea's answer includes a link to a guide to uninstall Xcode, which seems to suggest that the contents of /Developer
are only used by versions of Xcode prior to 4.3. I have already installed Xcode 4.6 on my machine, so I should be able to remove /Developer
and everything under it. That being said, the following statement in the aforementioned guide puzzled me a bit.
sudo /Developer/Library/uninstall-devtools --mode=xcodedir
This command is basically a shortcut to the previously mentioned “/Developer/Library/uninstall-developer-folder” script. If you want to ditch the /Developer directory, run this command rather than manually deleting it through the Finder.
Why should I run this script instead of simply deleting /Developer
through the Finder?
This question is related, but I don't want to fully remove Xcode 4. I just want to remove all traces of Xcode that are not needed by the latest version.
Best Answer
Yes, it looks like it should be safe to remove
/Developer
if you have already installed version 4.3 or later of Xcode. The Xcode section of the Apple Developer Support Center actually tells you to do this (emphasis mine).Furthermore, as pointed out by bispymusic,
/Developer
no longer exists with Xcode 4.3. Specifically (emphasis mine):