Monolingual

Monolingual

A tool for removing unneeded language localization files for macOS

Screenshot

What's new in 2.0.2

A small release for 2.0: a new icon, one more language, and a search field for the two lists.

• A new app icon.
• Simplified Chinese is new, and all 17 translations are complete.
• The language and architecture lists can be narrowed by typing. A search field in the title

bar filters the list of the tab you are on, which gives the language list back the behavior it had in 1.8.2: open the app, type "Eng", and it narrows to the English variants as you type. The field holds the keyboard focus as the window opens, and a list that matches nothing says so. What is checked stays checked, and a removal still covers the whole list, whether or not it is on screen.

What's new in 2.0.1

A patch release for 2.0.

• Monolingual can remove files again. 2.0 asked macOS for something it does not allow, so the

privileged helper that does the removing was never installed and the app could not free a single byte. macOS 27 refuses to register an unsandboxed launch daemon from a sandboxed app — SMAppService target executable must be sandboxed because the app is sandboxed — and Monolingual was on both sides of that rule at once: the app had been sandboxed since 2015, and the helper has to run unconfined because it deletes files anywhere on disk. SMJobBless, which 2.0 replaced with SMAppService, had no such requirement, which is why the two coexisted for a decade without anyone noticing. The app is no longer sandboxed.

• Existing settings start over. Preferences lived in the sandbox container, which an unsandboxed

app cannot read, so the folders to thin fall back to /Applications and /Library. If you had added a folder of your own, add it again under Preferences.

• Thinning a very large universal binary no longer crashes. The architecture offsets of a fat

file are added in 64 bits, and a file whose slices would not fit a 32-bit header is refused instead of trapping.

• The disk image installs without a network. The app inside it had no notarization ticket

stapled to it — only the zip did — so Gatekeeper had to ask Apple about the app before it would run, which fails on a Mac that is offline or behind a restrictive network. The app is now stapled before the disk image is built.