Try this. And be careful not to delete any fonts that your software depend on.

I'm all for people having lots of fonts, but I'm pretty sure loading 3,000 at once is going to cause problems no matter what font manager you use. You seem confident that "the system can handle it". I'm not so sure about that. Even if it is possible, I can't even imagine trying to scroll through a font menu with that many loaded.

Extensis has a nice guide to managing fonts on Macs. It has useful information even if you don't use their product (Suitcase):

http://www.extensis.com/en/downloads/document_download.jsp?docId=5600039

thanks, this is a nice program. i actually had almost 9000 fonts. (Font Book would also crash around 3,000 and I never actually went into the folders to confirm until now) No wonder I couldn't open Keynote or Word. Deleted them all but system fonts, gonna stay up all night and start installing the ones i really need.

and thanks for the extensis info. I'm starting to realize my practice of having this many fonts this unorganized is a bad idea. Day One of my new life starts tonight.

why don't you download linotype Fontexplorer X. its free and wont let you delete essential fonts from the original system.

its also never crashed on me so its totally worth it.

I downloaded both Fontexplorer X and Extensis Suitcase. Both are great but I am really excited about Extensis. This thing is awesome.

Usually, if someone has 9000 fonts it means he’s downloaded a lot of free fonts or some torrent with commercial fonts. I’m not necessarily saying you’re in any of those categories, but I’m saying no one really needs that many. Choose wisely when you buy fonts! IMO, a handful of quality stuff is way better than thousands. You’ll get familiar with the few and learn how to use them best, and you’ll value them higher.