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Where are services stored in Tiger?

When I drag down an application's menu, particularly Finder, I see a list of 31 services (in some applications some services are greyed out). Many are for third party applications I rarely use. I have looked in:


~/Library/Services --does not exist


/System/Library/Services --has a couple of Apple system services but there's a lot more such as Script Editor which are not there.


/Library/Services --contains a single third party service


Where were services stored in Tiger OS and how do I remove ones I am not likely to use such as ClamXAV? I poked around the insides of an application package or two and didn't see them listed there (at least not obviously).

G4 Quicksilver 2x1GHz 250/120GB HDs-OTHER, Mac OS X (10.4.11), OS9.2.2, iTunes7.5, QT7.4&QTP2.5.1

Posted on Apr 23, 2015 10:18 AM

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10 replies

Apr 23, 2015 10:54 AM in response to Kappy

Well, I have about 25 services for which I cannot account that are stored somewhere other than in those 3 folders (unless I have a bunch of files marked invisible which would strike me as strange).


Here's System/Library/Services:

SummaryService.app

SpeechService.service

AppleSpell.service

ImageCaptureService.app

ChineseTextConverterService.app

Spotlight.service


The one in /Library/Services is for a third party scientific device so I know what it does.


Among the ones I can't find are TextWrangler, The Unarchiver, ClamXAV, GrandPerspective but can't see anything to do with them in those folders (but do have the applications which I still use, though some very rarely). I also used Easyfind looked for all files ending in .workflow including inside packages and invisible.

Apr 23, 2015 11:28 AM in response to BDAqua

Getting warmer but still not there.


/System/Library/Contextual Menu Items

SpotlightCM.plugin

AutomatorCMM.plugin

FolderActionsMenu.plugin


/Library/Contextual Menu Items has a plugin related to the scientific one I found earlier and it is likely related to what I see when I right click but I suspect what I see in Finder is related to the one in the Services folder.


My user library has no CMI folder.


I did a search for .plugin using EasyFind. About 800 hits but none mentioning any of the applications I see in my list.


I did an EasyFind search for "contextual" and it turned bunch of system stuff but nothing really related to this issue.

Apr 23, 2015 12:40 PM in response to Kappy

Kappy, If I go Finder > Services there is no Services Preferences sub menu. I am referring to services in Tiger OS which may be different from the one to which you are referring. I tried doing a web search about this before asking here and found lots of information but it dated from about 2011 onwards and was in reference to later OSX versions where the menus were structured differently.

Apr 23, 2015 1:31 PM in response to Limnos

I still don't know where they are stored, some web site had mention of launchd. but I did find this:


ServicesScrubber - http://manytricks.com/servicescrubber/ - manage Finder Services in pre-OSX10.6 (free)

I kind of suspect services are hidden in the applications themselves, probably under some cryptic identifier. I have a few instances of multiple copies of an application on my computer and I noticed when using ServiceScrubber (SS) it sometimes flagged multiple occurrences of a service. In addition when I ran SS it took a bit of time to scan for services which makes me suspect it was doing a general drive scan of my multiple drives (some extra application copies are on different drives) rather than taking a look at just one or two targeted Services folders.


It seems Apple made services a lot more up-front and manageable post Leopard (kind of a very strange thing for Apple to do given its post-Tiger trend towards its current mother-knows-best attitude). There was mention of a "Services Manager" utility that I saw mentioned on a site dating from 2003 which suggested it was a very early utility but I could only find solid mention of it in a Mountain Lion or something version. It seems it wasn't a very well advertised utility (kind of like all the goodies tucked away in Core Services folder) and was maybe something you had to download specially, and has now vanished for good into the dark pits of edgesuite.

Where are services stored in Tiger?

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