Mac 101: Remove unwanted System Preference panes
Sometimes applications can install extras in the form of System Preference panes. However, when you remove the app from your Mac, you might be left with extraneous System Preference panes.
To uninstall System Preference panes, just right-click (or control + click if you have a one button mouse) on the preference pane icon and select "remove x preference pane."
When you click "remove," the preference pane will be instantly moved to the OS X Trash can where you can completely remove it from your system by emptying the trash. Please note that this will only work on System Preference panes located in the "Other" section of System Preferences.
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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
Chris said 9:22AM on 7-17-2008
AppCleaner is a great FREE program that will search and remove preference panes. It will also remove the associated files.
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Sean Robbins said 9:31AM on 7-17-2008
This is amazing! I am so glad you covered this. I have some crap on my mac that I had been wanting to get rid of for some time. THANKS! :)
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Christian said 9:37AM on 7-17-2008
Cory, I'm not sure why you'd take a screenshot suggesting you're removing a useful program like Flip4Mac, buggy though it is, and leave in place Application "Enhancer," also known as the closest thing on Mac OS X to a virus.
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Christian said 9:39AM on 7-17-2008
And actually, only Ctrl-clicking removes it. A right-click does not give you the remove context menu; OS X treat right-clicking on a pref pane the same as left-clicking on it.
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mark said 10:41AM on 7-17-2008
works just fine on mine. but then my (3rd party) mouse is configured to send a right click when you... well, click on the botton on the right.
Kizorblade said 9:59AM on 7-17-2008
Don't remove Flip4Mac! It's teh awesome.
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Yos said 10:39AM on 7-17-2008
Why no? I have this on my computer and all it does is when I click on a movie file it downloads something annoying and I have to wait.. It was not like this at the beginning and until now I didnt really know how to get read of it. Now I know, but you said one shouldnt move it. Could you please explain why?
Thx :)
Yosi, Germany
Kizorblade said 1:48AM on 7-18-2008
Well, my only use of it is to playback WMV stuff, as it's been a bitch on my machine :(
Sleepy said 1:20PM on 7-17-2008
Right-click to remove only? Is this designed by an engineer who's a new Windows convert?
What happened to the Mac way, drag-and-trash?
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RandaL_Hicks said 2:02PM on 7-17-2008
supplemental::
/Library/PreferencePanes stores add-ons -- of course System/Library/PreferencePanes for system and each user has their own USERNAME/Library/PreferencePanes which adds panes privy to them.
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mutz said 2:04PM on 7-17-2008
Check out diablotin a preference pane where you can do a lot more. And it's free. http://s.sudre.free.fr/Software/Diablotin.html
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