I'm regularly flying only with 5 or 6 different aircraft (payware and Asobo). As long as we don't have a personalized hangar (a/c favorites) I'd like to remove (uninstall) all that unused aircraft, keeping only 10-15 on my system.

My question, would that do any harm?  

I'm not using any MS/Asobo flight challenges or scenic flights. For AI traffic I'm using exclusively FSLTL/AIG. As far as I understand, it should then be possible to remove most of MSFS/Asobo a/c without any disadvantages. Is there anything I forgot or I should consider?

 

Deleted almost all of them yesterday, and havnt seen any problems so far. I kept the A320/787/747 though, since I only fly airliners (payware/downloaded freeware)

I went through this process a couple of times, and found the sim was insisting on re-installing some aircraft I'd removed. Usually down to various challenges/bush flights and other scenarios that I never used anyway. So I removed all that stuff. But then various system or world updates would reinstate the need for aircraft on occasion (new challenges, etc)

I ended up using @guenseli's splendid "DAMFOOL" package (on .to ). Particularly if you use the addons linker, it's a great way to be able to turn default aircraft on and off quickly without having to uninstall them.

Most default content can be deleted - but not all.  I would recommend keeping the aircraft that are used by landing challenges and default discovery flights.  And I wouldn't recommend deleting those discovery flight contents from your Content Manager.

I've uninstalled all of the awful stock liveries, for every plane (eg. Xbox Aviator livery, etc).  That alone removed around 5Gb of content.  I've then uninstalled some planes that I will never use (Spruce Goose, Hughes, etc). No issues again.  I've left the A320 as FBW uses it.  I've unistalled the 787 and 747, again with no issues.  All told, I've removed around 30Gb of content that I won't use. 

41 minutes ago, JYW said:

I've uninstalled all of the awful stock liveries

May I ask how you did that?

 

I have had almost every aircraft uninstalled for years, along with all their liveries. If I am not actively using a plane, I do not want to see it when I go to select aircraft; and I do not want dozens or hundreds of GBs on my hard drive for no purpose whatsoever. I have also deleted all the bush trips, scenic routes and training missions, none of which I have ever or will ever fly. 

Having done this, I have not experienced any issues. Some of the boxes on the home screen are greyed out because I do not have the mission/aircraft installed, but that is about it. Otherwise, the sim works as expected. Once in 2 years during a reinstall (I reinstall every 6 months) it did force a reinstall of all that content, which I just subsequently uninstalled again, but overall, the sim deals with it well and I have not had issues. 

This said, there are a few aircraft like the TBM that it will not let you uninstall, I believe because it contains some dependencies for other aircraft or system operation. But I think there are only two or three of these.

25 minutes ago, davenicoll said:

May I ask how you did that?

 

Go into the Content manager and search for "Aviators"

3 hours ago, JYW said:

I've uninstalled all of the awful stock liveries

 

2 hours ago, davenicoll said:

May I ask how you did that?

 

2 hours ago, Bert Pieke said:

Go into the Content manager and search for "Aviators"

I posted detailed info here, but as far as the default liveries:

Go to Content Manager and type in what you're looking to delete. Type 'Aviators' (no apostrophe) to find all of those ones (other than the few I mentioned in my post). Similarly, type the other livery names you want to delete (e.g. 'Orbit', 'Pacifica', 'Windows 11' etc) or the name of the aircraft type. When you see a '1' after the name after typing an aircraft type into the search bar, that is one of the 'Livery 1' examples. Work slowly and steadily so as not to accidentally delete the main model/livery. Takes a while but as you see there is a lot of space to save as well as getting rid of liveries you'll never use.

I desperately wish we could have a favorites selection....  I think there are 167 aircraft/rotorcraft in my hangar