Fed up with macOS – it downloaded 47 GB of 4K 240FPS screensavers. Asahi FTW

[notdian]

I was troubleshooting why my storage was so low, found this folder: `/Library/Application Support/com.apple.idleassetsd/Customer/4KSDR240FPS` about 47 GB of 4K/240FPS movies macOS had downloaded for the screensaver.

Enough was enough, so I switched to Asahi Linux. Running Sway now my whole session (Firefox open) uses around 2 GB of RAM. I can recognize all the processes running — there are quirks, but they’re worth it for the control and freed-up space.

[Screenshot] https://imgur.com/a/I7PPXuy

Edit: Add Screenshot

[LeoPanthera]

It's sort of insane to switch to an almost completely unrelated operating system because of such a trivial feature as a screensaver.

It doesn't download those screensavers unprompted, you have to actually select them in the System Settings.

It's hard to believe that anyone who thought that a Mac was the right computer for them could so easily switch to Linux on hardware which has a great number of unsupported features.

I know that Hacker News is not representative of the real world, but gosh, stories like this are crazy.

[ghusto → LeoPanthera]

I'm fairly sure this was just the straw that broke the camel's back.

There's a fair amount of arse-hatery in MacOS that by itself won't make you switch, but I can easily imagine it mounting up past intolerability. In fact, I don't need to imagine it, because I'm nearly there.

The iPhone is even worse, because at least on MacOS I can fix most the design decisions via secret settings in the terminal.

[black_puppydog → LeoPanthera]

That reads a lot like complaining that the author just didn't hear the gospel...

[arcanemachiner → LeoPanthera]

It's possible that they were looking for a reason to do it anyway, and this was just the straw that broke the camel's back.

I agree with you though: From the outside, this does seem like a strange response to the issue.

[fsckboy → LeoPanthera]

>It's hard to believe that anyone who thought that a Mac was the right computer for them could so easily switch to Linux on hardware which has a great number of unsupported features

his story makes complete sense in the space in which he wrote it, and therefore you are writing complete nonsense. sounds to me like he was already familiar with unix style computing, and he didn't get a mac originally because it supported something that linux didn't, like most users. "with the Mac it just works" is a 30 or more year ago marketing message

still, this was the last straw for him, as he literally said, enough was enough.

[bigyabai → LeoPanthera]

It's surprisingly common, if you ask around. I owned a Mac for a few years, daily drove it, and the first-party advertising eventually pushed me over the edge to GNOME. Been using Linux for ~6 years now, every time I log onto a Mac the issue is only worse.

You might not be able to conceptualize this being an issue. Half the Mac owners I've known in my life eventually left MacOS over an arbitrary software default that impeded their workflow.

[huydotnet]

Not Asahi but I recently revived a 10-year-old MacBook Pro (MBP 2015) that had been sitting in my closet for many years by installing Fedora on it. To my surprise, it's fast and sleek, just like a brand new computer. All of the drivers worked!

The laptop now serves as a desktop when I'm at home and as an SSH server when I'm at work. And my 5-year-old M1 MacBook is now sitting in the closet, waiting for its turn in the next 10 years.

[Retr0id → huydotnet]

I think you'll find the M1 macbook runs Fedora even better

[weikju → Retr0id]

Except for all the issues running ARM, 16k page sizes (cuts out some flatpaks!), and the stuff that's not yet implemented like dispaly out on thunderbolt.

[kadutskyi → huydotnet]

I run couple servers with NixOs, one on MBA 2015 and another one on ThinkPad x240. Works well

[sbierwagen]

  % du -hcs "/Library/Application Support/com.apple.idleassetsd/Customer/"
  5.1M /Library/Application Support/com.apple.idleassetsd/Customer/
  5.1M total

Is this only a thing in latest Sequoia? I've been clicking "remind me later" on the upgrade prompts for a couple weeks, since it seems like there's a story like this with every big release.

[notdian → sbierwagen]

I must have used the shuffle screensaver. Who knew a ‘harmless’ feature could quietly eat up ~50 GB of space and bandwidth?

[Lalabadie → notdian]

That folder is 5gb on my Air, at 300-400mb per video.

I have a category selected that says it's 22 possible videos, and out of those only 18 are currently cached on my machine. It looks like that directory is kept pruned at least occasionally.

Nonetheless, just an indication of the potential size on disk would keep users aware when they pick these screensavers. An explicit "Screensaver videos" category in the disk usage graph is also a good solution.

[ezfe → notdian]

I mean, how else did you expect it to play a random assortment of high quality videos as a screen saver? It's good these aren't bundled, and very few people have metered internet.

[dagmx]

It doesn’t download these by default. All the wallpaper and screensaver downloads are user initiated in their respective UI.

Did you click the download button on them by any chance, and forget about it?

[ghusto → dagmx]

If I clicked download on some screensavers, I would never think it had downloaded _4K@240FPS resulting in 47 GB of lost disk space!_ The fact that a big warning doesn't come up with this fact makes it even less excusable.

It's like if I went to the dentist for a filling and received a bill for 1k because "you know, those titanium fillings are expensive". Who asked you for titanium you lunatic?!

[geor9e → ghusto]

>a bill for 1k

You're conflating a "one way door" with a "two way door" here. The permanant loss of money is a one way door you can't undo. Opting into a screensaver is a two way door you are a few clicks from undoing.

[frizlab → dagmx]

And you can remove them once you downloaded them.

Basically OP wanted a reason to switch would be my guess.

[rcarmo → frizlab]

…and has loads of free time.

[notdian → dagmx]

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45076459

[chis]

Unfortunately I think you will find that Linux also has bugs and poor designs

[ghusto → chis]

Recently tried a Linux desktop and was delighted to see that any design decisions I didn't agree with could be easily configured.

I'm sure there are bugs, but I didn't encounter any.

On the other hand, many of the poorly thought out design decisions on Mac can not be touched (and the ones that can be configured have to be done via secret commands), and I run into bugs regularly.

[tim333]

I'm not sure about macOS in that way either. I get disk full errors on my 256GB macbook which has maybe 40GB of stuff I want and the rest seems to be crap that auto downloads. I guess there's some way to control it? But it goes away from the "it just works" Apple ethos.

[tw600040]

the biggest problem with switching away from Mac is losing the ecosystem benefits. When Apple TV automatically knows to fill your iCloud password, all the Apple Watch integration, syncing everything from notes to reminders. I can't see how any Linux can match all that.

[msk-lywenn → tw600040]

It's rather easy to change the password provider from Apple's to something else, like bitwarden, on an iPad or an iPhone. I assume it's possible on Apple TV too.

I tried syncing notes with IMAP but I never managed to get it to work.

For the Apple Watch, I don't have one or any "smart" watch so I can't say anything.

[geor9e]

NH users are a special breed. The slightest inconvenience in MacOS or Windows occurs, and instead of spending the 2 minutes it takes to fix it, they jump ship and embark on months long journey of pain and suffering, complete with blog essay.

[lagniappe]

Is Asahi still making regular meaningful progress since Marcan quit?

https://marcan.st/2025/02/resigning-as-asahi-linux-project-l...

[conradev → lagniappe]

Yes: https://asahilinux.org/blog/

[rcarmo]

I’d be really interested in understanding how real this is since I have most of them on disk and only a small percentage of that disk space. And they’re not 240fps.

[notdian → rcarmo]

similar case https://discussions.apple.com/thread/255329956?sortBy=rank .

[ksec]

Not on my machine with only one files about 100MB. Still Why on earth do they do that?

I keep thinking if Apple is deliberately doing it. From Safari constantly writing 100GBs per day on paging, to this. It is the small things Apple no longer cared about which is worrying in terms of company culture.

[galad87 → ksec]

It could either be a bug, or they clicked on every screensaver in System Settings to download them years ago, or screensaver was set to Random.

[benterix → galad87]

Either way, when you are in a business of selling relatively cheap models with very low storage option and charge a fat extra for more modern options, you have incentives to fill the space on your device a bit faster.

[ksec → benterix]

And that is exactly what I think they have been doing to iPhone for years.

[neurodyne]

Also, what does 47 GB of used disk space on macOS have to do with 2 GB of RAM used on Linux?

[AstroBen]

> Running Sway now my whole session (Firefox open) uses around 2 GB of RAM

Well shit yeah that's definitely a problem! Is your OS not making good use of your available memory?

[notdian → AstroBen]

Definitely helps. MacOS was using about 10 GB of RAM by default, and with rust-analyzer and other projects running the system now swaps much less — so my SSD should last longer.

[yjftsjthsd-h → rvz]

Isn't it the opposite? Thinking 47G is nothing is a stereotypical first world position; caring about the waste, less so.

[bigyabai → rvz]

You know, if you respond to every valid OS complaint like that, eventually you will be the problem. It happened with Microsoft, happened to Google, and sure as shit can happen to the "you're holding it wrong" company.

[clint]

You have to explicitly download these. Just don't do that.