Deleting unused apps, etc.

NJM55 wrote:

A security program I use has a step for performance issues that recommends removing application caches, log files, and unused apps. I'm sure the program (the paid version of a well known antivirus etc. app) wouldn't advise users to do anything harmful, ….

I would encourage researching discussions of corruptions and crashes and performance issues arising from add-on security apps and add-on cleaning apps.

There are more subtle issues arising with these apps, too. One well-known security app was selling individually identified web browsing activity including purchasing activity. They claim to have stopped that.

(Of course I am quite certain that no other add-on apps are collecting and selling collected data, because no vendors have ever been even slightly tempted to collect and track and sell users’ privacy, ever. 🙄 And among the add-on apps, security apps and cleaning apps have the deepest access.)

Various add-on security apps have had false positives and some have tried to delete parts of macOS. In at least two of the false-positive cases reported around here, the built-in anti-malware and malware removal tools blocked the attempted corruption; the built-in anti-malware tools correctly detected and treated the add-in anti-malware as malware.

If you do decide to start manually deleting apps you are not using, have complete and current backups. Also have a look at your storage usage patterns. Most apps aren’t all that much storage, as compared with the piles of data and media and such that many of us accumulate. The GrandPerspective or OmniDiskSweeper apps can be useful for identifying your particular storage usage pattens, too.

If you're talking about something like CleanMyMac and that ilk of the same type, that's a system disruption just waiting to happen. All such "security" apps that proportion to be cleaners, fixers, AV, optimizers and etc are a waste of time money and effort and can (an do) disrupt your Mac's operation. You should uninstall them all.

Delete ONLY user data, 3rd party apps you installed and apps and files you downloaded. Do not delete anything related to your system.

You can safely uninstall the three Apple office apps and GarageBand but no others. They can be gotten back from the Mac Apple Store if you desire to ever do so.