Deleting voice files

There ahve been a number of peoole here that have deleted the voices they don't use. Just make a back of of your gps before you delete anything. Good Luck

On my 1490 I just deleted all the voice files except the American, British and Australian english. I also deleted all the language files except for English and all the excess vehicles and jpeg graphics.
I don't remember how much more memory it gave me but I believe it was in the 35-45 MB region.

did we mention that you ought to backup before deleting anything?

Dump them. I don't need voice files for languages I don't understand. They take up a lot of room and are useless to me.

I kept the English voices and dumped ALL of the others.

I agree, BUT I still think everyone should do a backup before deleting anything. It is too easy to select several files and have it include one you really did want.

Help us encourage everyone especially newbies, to always BACKUP.

If you make a backup first then you can always easily restore the ones you erased from the unit if you ever decide to sell it to someone else.

Excellent comment!!!!!!

Wish I had thought of that. With your permission, I will use the "sell it to someone else" when I encourage newbies (really, everyone) to BACKUP.

I deleted all the *.vpm files for the languages you don't need. That saves lots of spaces. Just in case you have no backup, you can still use Garmin WebUpdater to get these vpm files back.

If you delete voice files or vehicle icons from unit and then run WebUpdater they will show on list as available updates. So you can load them from there without need for any backup. Of course it applies only to original files that came with unit.

And space you can save can be rather big. One TTS voice takes over 15MB. If you have voices from around the world you can actually save about 200-300MB in unit memory. And this can really make a difference if you are updating maps and don't have enough space.

as you can always reload any you need via webupdater. Evertime I go to check for updates all the voices are shown and can easily be loaded back on the garmin.

I deleted all the voice files except the English files, I gained 293 MB more free space. I went from 40 MB of free space to 333 MB of free space

That was the first thing I did when I received my garmin, no use of having all those files when you don't need them, howver I did copy them to an external drive in case I decided I needed them in the future. It helps out when you are updating maps due to the room needed to update the maps

I haven't deleted any yet though I saw a similar thread a few weeks ago and did my backup. I have been putting all my pois, pics and such on the sd card. I will probably do it before the next map update.

Until then I thought I might try and learn a little spanish.

Unless you have added a bunch of additional voices, they don't take up that much room actually. I went through all of the voices on my unit and deleted the ones I didn't like. Not for the space savings but so I didn't have to go through them all to find the ones I felt I might actually use.

Not sure what one would be putting on their units that they needed to delete voice files or whatever. You can always install an SD card for other stuff.

Always back up your unit's stuff on a computer before deleting anything. You'll be surprised at the screwy things it can cause a unit to do when it's missing some "needed" files.

On the 14xx models there is very little free space, out of the box, in fact only 128MB on my 1490. Deleting all but the English Language voice files freed up an additional 370MB of space. I now have no concerns about a map update filling up the units storage drive, or worse yet, not having enough space to update the total North American mapset.

Have to agree - a full backup - is required before deleting anything.

When backing up the newer Nuvi's however there is a "good news/bad news" scenario. The most important files on the Nuvi (map files etc.) are stored in the .system folder. The good news is that this folder is hidden in Windows by default as it's considered a "system folder". If you haven't gone into Windows Folder View Options and changed the settings to show all hidden files and folders and to show system folders, you can't delete anything in this folder by mistake (unless you reformat the drive).

The bad news about the .system folder is that if it remains hidden in Windows and you do your backup by simply copying the contents of the Nuvi to a folder on your PC, you will never get a backup of it. So the most important folder on your Nuvi will not be backed up.

Using a backup program that creates a disk image will however capture ALL the files and folders on the Nuvi without making folder view changes in Windows.

Thanks for the info on the hidden system folder. I didn't pay attention to that when I copied my Garmin folders to my h ard drive. I'll have to check that.

I deleted all of them off my 765t except for the English speaking ones. It doesnt hurt a thing!

I deleted all non-English voices and text files in my Garmin 255. My available memory went from 426mb to 1.3gb! I have lots of room for custom POIs!

As many have stated above, deleting unused voices can free up a lot of space. Also, as has been said above, do make a backup before messing around with things.

If you delete something and later find you need it is sometimes very hard to find out which files you need to restore proper functioning of the unit.

I've been deleted all of the above except for the ones I use for a long time ie C3, and C5 series etc, now the Nuvi's.

I deleted all the unused voices and jpegs from my 1490 and it still works just fine. As has been pointed out, you can always get them back from the Garmin web site.
That being said, I would still make a back up.
(Belt and Braces)

I know some friends that would change the language on you when you were not looking.. Childish I know but sometimes can be a hassle when they also change the display language