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

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

#1

Post by notdian » Sat, Aug 30, 2025, 4:57 PM UTC

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

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

#2

Post by rvz » Sat, Aug 30, 2025, 5:06 PM UTC

[flagged]

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

#3

Post by bigyabai » Sat, Aug 30, 2025, 5:08 PM UTC

rvz wrote: post #2

[flagged]

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.

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

#4

Post by ksec » Sat, Aug 30, 2025, 5:11 PM UTC

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.

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

#5

Post by sbierwagen » Sat, Aug 30, 2025, 5:22 PM UTC

  % 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.

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

#6

Post by notdian » Sat, Aug 30, 2025, 5:32 PM UTC

sbierwagen wrote: post #5

% 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.

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

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

#7

Post by lagniappe » Sat, Aug 30, 2025, 5:34 PM UTC

Is Asahi still making regular meaningful progress since Marcan quit?

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

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

#8

Post by yjftsjthsd-h » Sat, Aug 30, 2025, 5:37 PM UTC

rvz wrote: post #2

[flagged]

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

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

#9

Post by conradev » Sat, Aug 30, 2025, 5:39 PM UTC

lagniappe wrote: post #7

Is Asahi still making regular meaningful progress since Marcan quit? https://marcan.st/2025/02/resigning-as-asahi-linux-project-l...

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

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

#10

Post by dagmx » Sat, Aug 30, 2025, 5:41 PM UTC

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?