Filed under: Switchers, Mac 101
Mac 101: uninstalling applications
This time around in Mac 101 I thought it would be good to talk about uninstalling applications on the Mac, especially for the recent switchers out there. Unlike Windows, Mac OS X does not have a native utility for uninstalling applications. Most (though not all) applications are installed just by dragging and dropping them into the Applications folder, and most are similarly got rid of by dragging them to the trash. However, when you do that you often leave behind preference and support files, especially in your user Library folder hierarchy (/Users/yourname/Library, as distinct from /Library which is "owned" by Mac OS X). While you can root these files out yourself, it's sometimes far from obvious where they are. To resolve this, a new class of uninstallers have appeared on the scene to address the problem. One of the first was AppZapper ($12.95), but many more have arisen like AppDelete (donations requested), SuperPop ($15), and CleanApp ($10). With most of these you choose the application you want deleted by dropping it on the uninstaller (or choosing it from a list); hit a button and the application plus its support files are sent to the trash. Taking a slightly different approach, Yank ($19.95) actually monitors your system while you are installing applications and creates a "Yank File" that records the location of everything created by the application. You then uninstall by running the Yank File.
Finally, there are uninstallers that integrate with the Trash itself, requiring no separate interface. Into this class fall Hazel ($21.95), which also does other automatic file management tasks, and AppTrap (donations requested). What's great about these last two is that you can just drag an application to the trash and they will automatically look for and offer to delete the support files. Indeed, this seems to me to be the most Mac-like and elegant approach. For my own part I mostly just use Hazel, though I still throw things at AppZapper now and again.
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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 2)
Cycomachead said 10:17AM on 4-28-2008
My preferred way of deleting things is spotlight. I just run a search and make sure it's set to show system and invisible files.
I also like digging through the Library folders because there's often interesting stuff. - I'm a hacker I'm born to do it. :-)
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Nopix said 10:27AM on 4-28-2008
The bast way for uninstalling apps is App Cleaner (FOR FREE)
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super-sekrit said 10:39AM on 4-28-2008
Don't forget that Forklift has an uninstaller option for programs on your Mac too.
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Rafe H. said 10:44AM on 4-28-2008
To make the comparison more correct, when you uninstall a program on Windows through the Add/Remove programs feature, you are also left with preferences files littering your home folder (and sometimes the registry). To hunt down the files you need to "Show hidden files and folders" and root around in various hidden folders.
Also, for Mac apps that use the native OS X installer app (found in the Utilities folder), just select File->Show Files during the installation and Print to PDF to have a bill of materials that will help with manual uninstallations in the future.
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todd said 11:02AM on 4-28-2008
Yank sounds cool, but according to their page, it hasn't been updated in over a year! (March 20th, 2007) So it may not work properly with Leopard if that's the case.
Bad form recommending staleware.
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aptenergy said 11:11AM on 4-28-2008
I think it's important to point out that it shouldn't hurt to leave these preference files around. Preference files are accessed only by the application using them, so if one deletes the application, the presence of these files should be irrelevant to the system.
That said, people who like to keep things tidy (or who need to reset an application, for example) should look into these apps.
Now if there was a program that could find unused preference files, i.e. ones that aren't being used by any apps on the system... that would be awesome.
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Michael said 11:22AM on 4-28-2008
"While you can root these files out yourself, it's sometimes far from obvious where they are."
Hmmm.
With a drag-and-drop install, how about here?
~/Library/Application Support
~/Library/Caches
and
~/Library/Preferences
That's about the size of it.
And if the application developer has put something elsewhere than in those three locations, AppZapper isn't going to find it anyway *because that is the only locations it checks*. And if the names of the directories and files in those there locations doesn't match what AppZapper was expecting (based on the application name), then -- again -- AppZapper's not going to find anything, anyway.
You might as well look yourself as, so to speak, send your $12.95 to the Trash, because AppZapper only does what you can do for yourself, except when it can't and does less.
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gil said 11:23AM on 4-28-2008
I wish more companies just used the method Apple promotes - I'm looking at you Adobe and your piece of crap installer.
With these types of uninstall programs I'm afraid developers will get lazy. Saying that, I don't trust some developers and the type of things that can stay in your system.
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Tony said 11:33AM on 4-28-2008
What method apple promotes..
Try to uninstall xcode without help, or iTunes.
You need an uninstaller for those, and there's no official one.
Joe L. said 11:55AM on 4-28-2008
Having already paid for AppZapper (twice), I gladly switched to AppCleaner a couple months ago.
http://www.macupdate.com/info.php/id/25276
As far as I can tell, AppCleaner does exactly the same as Zapper, plust more, plus it's free. The interface makes it easier to delete Pref Panes and plugins too.
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Forrest said 12:23PM on 4-28-2008
Anyone know if any of these apps actually get rid of all of the associated install files? I used AppZapper for a while (paid for it) but it always left stuff. I still had to do a search and remove the extra files. Pretty much defeats the purpose of the app.
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larsalan said 12:50PM on 4-28-2008
Try AppDelete it's free so if you don't like it...
I use it and I know it leaves receipt files. But try it
neillium said 12:05PM on 4-28-2008
I'm a big fan of freeware. Therefore I scour the the internet looking for alternatives to things. I used to have the AppZapper demo and liked it. I started to look around and found this wonderful thing called AppCleaner. Although the site does not exist anymore, I'm sure that you can find a copy of the DMG somewhere.
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Quill said 2:26AM on 4-29-2008
AppCleaner can be found here: http://www.freemacsoft.net/AppCleaner/
neillium said 8:39AM on 4-29-2008
It's back up a running now! I went there like 5 times and it kept on giving me the "This domain has expired" stuff. Hooray!
affaires said 1:24PM on 4-28-2008
I'm a user of AppZapper and Hazel. *No* application suggested comes close to delivering a perfectly working uninstallation solution. Only yank looks truly useful. I didn't try it and I'm not going to, because:
- it has bad reviews on macupdate (dating of 2006)
- there's no active user community (no upload of yank files since 2006)
- as todd (5) said, it's not been updated since early 2007.
Yank is a promising product that reminds me of 1995 products for windows. (Which probably kept existing until now.) I wonder why the developer didn't persist to make it successful. I would have bought it.
Mat Lu, why did you suggest this staleware? Could you try it and tell us how it fares? If it has any merits in 2008, you could help by giving it a new reputation, leveraging tuaw's reach. But only do so if you've spoken with the developer and has seen strong commitment from him to raise it back from the dead, please.
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Thomas said 2:34PM on 4-28-2008
This might be a candidate for Ask TUAW, but I have been trying to find a way to uninstall iTunes and QuickTime from Leopard. I have VLC and Senuti for all my media and iPod management and I like to keep my system clean from all unused programs. I use AppTrap for all of my uninstalling and I have dragged the iTunes and QuickTime programs to the trash/AppTrap but Apple Software Update still informs me of updates for these programs. This leads me to believe that there are still traces of them left on my system.
Any suggestions or 3rd party apps for this?
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Michael Rose said 5:47PM on 4-28-2008
Thomas, deleting the iTunes application should be enough to get rid of it -- file associations may persist but you can clear those with RCDefaultApp.
Uninstalling QuickTime from Leopard is neither simple nor recommended, as it's a fundamental system service and things will fail if it's not present. You are welcome to remove the QuickTime Player application and browser plugins if you want but the underlying components are there for good.
Andrew said 2:05AM on 4-29-2008
i recently tested a few uninstallers by seeing how many related files they could each find for various applications. below are the results.
uninstallers tested:
- appcleaner
- appdelete
- forklift's "delete application" function
- appzapper
- cleanapp
- apptrap
vmwarefusion (number is the number of files found)
appdelete: 7
cleanapp: 7
forklift: 7
apptrap: 5
appcleaner, appzapper: 4
iphoto
appdelete: 7, including an internet plug-in; awesome
forklift: 6
cleanapp: 5
appcleaner, appzapper: 4
apptrap: 3
skype
appdelete: 7, including a growlticket!
cleanapp: 5
apptrap: 5
forklift: 4
appzapper, appcleaner: 4
itunes
appdelete: 12
forklift: 11
cleanapp: 11
appzapper, appcleaner: 8
apptrap: 4
yojimbo
appdelete: 9
appzapper: 8 (including a PDF service)
cleanapp, appcleaner, forklift: 7
appcleaner: 7
apptrap: 6
mail
appdelete: 14
forklift: 12
cleanapp: 8
appcleaner: 7
appzapper: 5
apptrap: 4
conclusion:
obviously this is not a perfect science, but appdelete did the best job, although it is a little slow (but version 2.0 is coming out soon). apptrap consistently performed the worst, and if you want trash-can logging, appcleaner (freeware) supports that as well as a bunch of other stuff. based on my tests there is absolutely no reason to pay for appzapper aside from the flash of light and zap noise (which are actually a little addicting).
however, the most complete solution seems to involve cleanapp's logging service, which when turned on runs as a daemon and logs every app you install. i'm still testing this out to see how it compares with appdelete, but so far it's just as good if not better.
forklift's app delete is actually pretty good considering it plays second fiddle, but it's inconvenient to use for keyboard-junkies on launchbar or quicksilver.
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Brandon said 11:31PM on 4-28-2008
Everyone leaves out uApp http://uapp.en.softonic.com/mac
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