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<h1 class="article-title">Automatically clean up "Previous Mobile Applications"</h1>
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<time class="article-timestamp" datetime="2015-06-27T21:19:59-07:00">June 27, 2015</time>
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<p>iTunes keeps a "Previous Mobile Applications" folder of questionable value, which always annoys me. It eats into disk space and wastes syncing/backup cycles and bandwidth; you can easily find horror stories online about <a href="http://forums.macrumors.com/threads/5-years-of-deleted-iphone-apps-accumulated-in-my-itunes-library.1781676/#post-19749496">100GB+ PMA folders</a>. The value? You might be able to roll back to an earlier version, or restore an app pulled from the App Store. Really? I never had that need in my life<a class="footnoteRef" href="#fn1" id="fnref1"><sup>1</sup></a>; have you? Worst of all, there should be a periodic clean up option — just like how deleted mail are automatically purged after one month, but the option is missing.</p>
<p>Therefore, I wrote a trivial Python script to do the periodic cleanup. Feel free to grab my script below (also available at <a class="uri" href="http://git.io/previous-mobile-applications">http://git.io/previous-mobile-applications</a>) to save a few minutes of hacking. It should be plugged into a daily or weekly or monthly cron job (or the equivalent), and it writes data to <code>~/.local/share/itunes/previous-mobile-applications.json</code> by default. To customize, just modify the global constants.</p>
<div class="sourceCode"><pre class="sourceCode python"><code class="sourceCode python"><span class="co">#!/usr/bin/env python3</span>
<span class="co">"""Periodically clean up "Previous Mobile Applications" of iTunes."""</span>
<span class="im">import</span> arrow
<span class="im">import</span> datetime
<span class="im">import</span> json
<span class="im">import</span> os
<span class="im">import</span> sys
OFFENDING_DIR <span class="op">=</span> os.path.expanduser(<span class="st">"~/Music/iTunes/iTunes Media/Mobile Applications/Previous Mobile Applications"</span>)
STORAGE_DIR <span class="op">=</span> os.path.expanduser(<span class="st">"~/.local/share/itunes"</span>)
STORAGE_FILE <span class="op">=</span> os.path.join(STORAGE_DIR, <span class="st">"previous-mobile-applications.json"</span>)
DELETE_AFTER <span class="op">=</span> datetime.timedelta(days<span class="op">=</span><span class="dv">7</span>)
<span class="kw">def</span> load_storage():
<span class="co">"""Load stored dictionary of seen apps from STORAGE_FILE.</span>
<span class="co"> Returns</span>
<span class="co"> -------</span>
<span class="co"> seen_app_dict : dict</span>
<span class="co"> Dictionary of (app_filename, first_seen_date) key-value pairs,</span>
<span class="co"> where app_filename is str, and last_seen_date is datetime.date.</span>
<span class="co"> """</span>
os.makedirs(STORAGE_DIR, mode<span class="op">=</span><span class="bn">0o700</span>, exist_ok<span class="op">=</span><span class="va">True</span>)
<span class="cf">try</span>:
<span class="cf">with</span> <span class="bu">open</span>(STORAGE_FILE, encoding<span class="op">=</span><span class="st">"utf-8"</span>) <span class="im">as</span> fp:
serializable_seen_app_dict <span class="op">=</span> json.load(fp)
<span class="cf">return</span> {app_filename: arrow.get(serialized_first_seen_date).date()
<span class="cf">for</span> app_filename, serialized_first_seen_date <span class="kw">in</span> serializable_seen_app_dict.items()}
<span class="cf">except</span> <span class="pp">OSError</span>:
<span class="cf">return</span> {}
<span class="kw">def</span> write_storage(seen_app_dict):
<span class="co">"""Write the dictionary of seen apps to STORAGE_FILE.</span>
<span class="co"> Parameters</span>
<span class="co"> ----------</span>
<span class="co"> seen_app_dict : dict</span>
<span class="co"> See the return format of load_storage().</span>
<span class="co"> Returns</span>
<span class="co"> -------</span>
<span class="co"> 0 or 1</span>
<span class="co"> Return code indicating success or failure.</span>
<span class="co"> """</span>
<span class="co"># convert datetime.time to str (ISO 8601)</span>
serializable_seen_app_dict <span class="op">=</span> {app_filename: first_seen_date.isoformat()
<span class="cf">for</span> app_filename, first_seen_date <span class="kw">in</span> seen_app_dict.items()}
os.makedirs(STORAGE_DIR, mode<span class="op">=</span><span class="bn">0o700</span>, exist_ok<span class="op">=</span><span class="va">True</span>)
<span class="cf">try</span>:
<span class="cf">with</span> <span class="bu">open</span>(STORAGE_FILE, mode<span class="op">=</span><span class="st">"w"</span>, encoding<span class="op">=</span><span class="st">"utf-8"</span>) <span class="im">as</span> fp:
json.dump(serializable_seen_app_dict, fp, indent<span class="op">=</span><span class="dv">2</span>, sort_keys<span class="op">=</span><span class="va">True</span>)
<span class="cf">return</span> <span class="dv">0</span>
<span class="cf">except</span> <span class="pp">OSError</span> <span class="im">as</span> err:
sys.stderr.write(<span class="st">"error: failed to write to '</span><span class="sc">%s</span><span class="st">': </span><span class="sc">%s</span><span class="st">"</span> <span class="op">%</span> (STORAGE_FILE, <span class="bu">str</span>(err)))
<span class="cf">return</span> <span class="dv">1</span>
<span class="kw">def</span> main():
<span class="co">"""Main.</span>
<span class="co"> Returns</span>
<span class="co"> -------</span>
<span class="co"> 0 or 1</span>
<span class="co"> Return code indicating success or failure.</span>
<span class="co"> """</span>
<span class="cf">if</span> <span class="kw">not</span> os.path.isdir(OFFENDING_DIR):
<span class="co"># good, you don't have that junk</span>
<span class="cf">return</span> <span class="dv">0</span>
today <span class="op">=</span> datetime.date.today()
seen_app_dict <span class="op">=</span> load_storage()
current_app_list <span class="op">=</span> os.listdir(OFFENDING_DIR)
<span class="co"># boot already disappeared apps</span>
<span class="cf">for</span> app <span class="kw">in</span> [app <span class="cf">for</span> app <span class="kw">in</span> seen_app_dict <span class="cf">if</span> app <span class="kw">not</span> <span class="kw">in</span> current_app_list]:
seen_app_dict.pop(app)
<span class="co"># add newly appeared apps</span>
<span class="cf">for</span> app <span class="kw">in</span> [app <span class="cf">for</span> app <span class="kw">in</span> current_app_list <span class="cf">if</span> app <span class="kw">not</span> <span class="kw">in</span> seen_app_dict]:
seen_app_dict[app] <span class="op">=</span> today
<span class="co"># delete expired apps</span>
returncode <span class="op">=</span> <span class="dv">0</span>
newly_deleted_apps <span class="op">=</span> []
<span class="cf">for</span> app <span class="kw">in</span> seen_app_dict:
<span class="cf">if</span> today <span class="op">>=</span> seen_app_dict[app] <span class="op">+</span> DELETE_AFTER:
app_path <span class="op">=</span> os.path.join(OFFENDING_DIR, app)
<span class="cf">try</span>:
os.remove(app_path)
newly_deleted_apps.append(app)
<span class="cf">except</span> <span class="pp">OSError</span> <span class="im">as</span> err:
sys.stderr.write(<span class="st">"error: failed to remove '</span><span class="sc">%s</span><span class="st">': </span><span class="sc">%s</span><span class="st">"</span> <span class="op">%</span> (app_path, <span class="bu">str</span>(err)))
returncode <span class="op">=</span> <span class="dv">1</span>
<span class="cf">for</span> app <span class="kw">in</span> newly_deleted_apps:
seen_app_dict.pop(app)
<span class="co"># write data to disk</span>
returncode <span class="op">|=</span> write_storage(seen_app_dict)
<span class="cf">return</span> returncode
<span class="cf">if</span> <span class="va">__name__</span> <span class="op">==</span> <span class="st">"__main__"</span>:
exit(main())</code></pre></div>
<div class="footnotes">
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<li id="fn1"><p>Full disclosure: unlike many people, I'm not very obsessed with my phone, and I only have about two dozen third-party apps.<a class="footnotes-backlink" href="#fnref1">↩︎</a></p></li>
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