Deleting GarageBand files

In the Storage Manager[1] on MacOS, there are several categories on the left-hand side, each showing the amount of space used for that category. I noticed that, for whatever reason, I still had the GarageBand base files installed. I haven’t ever used this application, so I had no qualms about deleting these files to recover 2GB of space on my SSD.

When I clicked “Remove GarageBand Sound Library”, the system asked for administrator credentials.

I entered my credentials but the credentials prompt stayed on the screen without change.

That’s odd.

Maybe I’d entered them incorrectly and had missed the classic “head-shake no” UI gesture.

I entered them again.

Same thing. The credentials just cleared and the box stayed on screen.

That’s very strange. Unsure of what’s going on, I decided not to keep entering my administrator credentials into what seemed to be malfunctioning software. I canceled the dialog.

Same thing. The box stayed on screen, even after canceling.

I canceled again.

Same thing. Unchanged.

Curious, I dragged the window a little bit, to be able to see the underlying “Storage Manager” dialog in its entirety.

There was another credentials prompt behind it.

And another behind that.

I kept dragging them apart until I found six credentials prompts open at the same time.

Many Credentials Prompts in the Storage Manager

Now I knew what was going on: The files in the “Music Creation” category were in several folders, each of which was individually protected and need elevated permissions to remove.

Instead of collecting permissions, elevating access, deleting all of them at once, and then dropping privileged access, the operation ran through each step for each individual folder. It does this in parallel, which is why all of the dialogs show up at once, overlapping one another perfectly.

Now that I knew what was going on, I entered my credentials six more times. As each dialog closed, the number displayed next to “Music Creation” dropped by a bit, until the category disappeared entirely when I’d entered the last credentials.

There were probably about nine or ten dialogs initially, so be patient if you want to delete your “Music Creation” files.

It as strange, initially worrying, and inefficient, but at least it worked, in the end.