Remove the GarageBand Sound Library From Your Mac to Save Storage

GarageBand comes with gigabytes of files that take up space on your Mac in the Sound Library, even after you uninstall GarageBand itself.

Every Mac comes with GarageBand pre-installed. If you don’t plan to use GarageBand, you can easily uninstall it, but you will still have the GarageBand Sound Library taking up gigabytes of space on your Mac. To reclaim this space, you’ll need to uninstall the GarageBand Sound Library as well.

What Is the GarageBand Sound Library?

The GarageBand Sound Library includes samples, lessons, and virtual instruments for GarageBand. Apple breaks the Sound Library up into Apple Loops, Basic Lessons, and the Instrument Library. You can use these to create music or learn to play different instruments, such as the piano or guitar. It takes up about 2.3 GB of space on your hard drive.

Other music production applications, such as Logic Pro and MainStage, can also use the Instrument Library and Apple Loops contained in the Sound Library. However, only GarageBand uses the Basic Lessons.

How to Uninstall the GarageBand Sound Library

Uninstalling the Sound Library is very straightforward, similar to uninstalling a program in macOS. You can choose to uninstall only the Apple Loops or Basic Lessons, or you can uninstall everything. You can only uninstall select files if there are multiple music creation applications installed.

To uninstall the Sound Library from your Mac:

1. Click on the Apple logo in the menu bar and select About This Mac.
2. Click Storage and select Manage.
3. Click Music Creation, then click Remove GarageBand Sound Library.
4. Click Remove

Your Mac will now uninstall the Sound Library. You can install the Sound Library again in the future if you decide to use GarageBand or other music production applications. Furthermore, if you have GarageBand on your iPhone or iPad, you can add additional GarageBand sound packs.

Free Up Some Space by Ditching the Sound Library

GarageBand is the perfect application for macOS users who want to start creating music, but not every Mac user will use it. You might not know that these files are still on your Mac even after deleting GarageBand. But now you can free up some extra storage on your Mac by removing it, including the additional storage after uninstalling GarageBand.