Removing 3rd Party Apps: Best way?

I don't want to use a 3rd party "deletion app" to delete apps as I don't trust a lot of these types of apps.

Nor should you, since they are not reliable and using them could easily result in a corrupted system.

Do you have a great many third party apps, or just a select few for which you can use each one's recommended deletion procedure?

If you have a large number of them, or if you are not sure what's installed, or if their uninstallers simply don't work (a common characteristic of poorly implemented software) then the most expedient solution may be to create a backup of your existing system, erase it, reinstall OS X, and then reinstall your essential software. If you want to do that, write back for detailed instructions. You will need a device on which to store your essential software, usually an inexpensive external USB hard disk, but which can conceivably be as simple as a USB flash memory stick.

Could you kindly post the results from EtreCheck, so that we could advise you better. Just block out the non-essentials which we don't need to know.

EtreCheck was developed by a very respected member of this forum.

It will display a lot of information, about what is happening on your system

The first thing you must do is to ensure you have a reliable backup of your existing system, since what you describe could be a symptom of failing a hard disk drive. To learn how to to that read Mac Basics: Time Machine backs up your Mac - Apple Support.

Then, rule out hardware failure. Use Apple Hardware Test to quickly examine your system for hardware faults.

Apple Hardware Test is for Macs produced prior to June, 2013. Later Macs use Apple Diagnostics.

Then, consider running EtreCheck and posting its report. Read about it here. It contains a link to download EtreCheck. Do not download it from anywhere else (such as may be found by following the results of an Internet search).

To completely remove 3rd party apps, go to their website and see if they have an uninstaller for them. Some of them come with an uninstaller. They will tell you how to remove them. Some will also tell you how to manually find and delete all files associated with their application.

I use a 3rd party app called AppCleaner. I've never had a problem with it and it will find all files associated with an app. It gives you the choice to examine and remove what you want.

Thanks for your reply!

I just want to remove 3rd party apps from my Mac because it's been running sluggishly and I keep getting 'spinning beachballs'.

How can I see which 3rd party apps are running in the background so I know which 3rd party apps to uninstall???

This was exactly why you were requested to run EtreCheck, after having confirmed that your hardware is ok!

Etrecheck will tell you, which software is outdated, adware, etc, thus slowing down your Mac without visiting each and every website as suggested above.

A cursory hardware test is a prerequisite for diagnosing operational problems.

NewbMacUser wrote:

... I don't want to learn how to remove these apps by going to their individual websites as this would take too much time.

That is the reason for my original reply.

Using third party uninstallers, "cleaners", "zappers" etc is ill-advised and may result in the need to erase and reconfigure your Mac to restore it to operation, a concern you already expressed. How would you like to proceed?

If I have to remove applications I use iTrash with good result