How to remove language files on Mac

February 20, 2025
Asya Karapetyan
Written by
Asya Karapetyan
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A content marketer with 8+ years of experience specializing in macOS, focused on creating guides for Mac cleanup and optimization.
A content marketer with 8+ years of experience specializing in macOS, focused on creating guides for Mac cleanup and optimization.
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Vladimir Nuzhdin
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The content has been reviewed and approved by our team member, an Apple Certified Support Professional, who provides technical support to Nektony’s users.
The content has been reviewed and approved by our team member, an Apple Certified Support Professional, who provides technical support to Nektony’s users.

Most applications on a Mac translate (or localize) their interface to dozens of regions and languages. Usually, individual language files do not take up much space, but depending on the number of your apps, all localizations combined may consume a lot of disk space. Read the article to learn how to clear unneeded language files.

What are language files

Language files are special localization files of software that make interface languages available in a program. Some programs have a huge number of possible interface languages that are worth considering. But usually, users need only one version of the interface or just a few – obviously not twenty.

Read also: “How to change the keyboard language on a Mac“

How to delete language files on a Mac manually

Language resources of applications are stored within the apps, so you can go inside your apps and remove unneeded language files.

Follow these steps to find and remove localization files:

  1. Open Finder and go to the Applications folder.
  2. Find the app which provides numerous localizations for their interface.
  3. Right-click on the app and select Show Package Content from the context menu.
    4. Package contents
  4. Next, you need to find the folder with localization files. Often language files have names such as Japanese.lproj or ru.iproj. Language files
  5. Select unnecessary language files and remove them.
  6. You should do steps 2-5 again for every app you want to clear from the unneeded translations.

Here is a small table of the most common language abbreviations:
how to clear language files on mac

Please make sure you didn’t select for removal the languages you need. Otherwise, you may miss out on the interface language. Also, you should not remove the Base.lproj folder and English localization files because elsewhere your app might not work.

How to quickly clear language files on a Mac

Another safe and easy way to clear language resources on a Mac is to use a special software MacCleaner Pro. This app will find the localization files of all apps, and will list them for you so you can preview the files and remove unneeded translations in one go.

Follow these steps to preview all language resource files and remove unneeded files.

  1. Launch MacCleaner Pro.
  2. Switch to the Clean Up section.
  3. Select the Language Files category and click Review and Clean Up.
  4. Confirm the removal.

    5. language files mac

Please note, the app doesn’t remove language resources from the default Apple applications due to System Integrity Protection (SIP). Also, by default, MacCleaner Pro does not mark the languages you use, i.e. those which are available in your keyboard preferences. And, finally, MacCleaner Pro does not allow you to remove English localization because it’s usually the default language for apps and is critical for their usage.
As you can see, clearing language files with MacCleaner Pro is super easy. Use the app’s other tools to clean and speed up your Mac.

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