Reduce size of compressed disk images
Jun 09, '03 10:00:00AM • Contributed by: triplef
I'm distributing software for Mac OS X using .dmg images created with Disk Copy. I have a (uncompressed) read/write image where all the image options are set accordingly (background, window position, icon size, etc.). Whenever I release a new version of my software, I would replace the application on the read/write image with the new version and compress the image using Disk Copy.
When creating a new image today, I noticed that although the software didn't grow in size, the compressed image did (3.1 MB vs. 2.9 MB). I thought it might be some kind of fragmenting issue and indeed: after I had deleted all files on the read/write image, emptied the trash, copied the files to the image and compressed it again, the new image was just 2.6 MB!
Bottom line: Never replace files on a disk image which is to be compressed - delete and copy them.
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