uninstalling applications completely

If only it could! It's just the way macOS apps install/uninstall was designed.

If you uninstall an app by dragging it to the trash it also leaves behind :

• caches files in ~Library/Caches
• preferences files in ~Library/Preferences
• log files in ~Library/Logs
• Other files in
  • ~Library/Containers
  • ~Library/Cookies
  • ~Library/Address Book Plug-Ins
  • ~Library/Saved Application State
  • ~private/var/db/BootCaches

To completely uninstall an app you can use software such as AppCleaner https://freemacsoft.net/appcleaner/

Let's be clear about that. None of files in this list were created on my disk at any other date/hour/mn/sec than this install. If this list includes 'essential' system files — of which I seriously doubt — this can only be because this app has modified them, therefore there's absolutely no way I accept to keep them on my disk, in any case, and even if this breaks something. That's as simple as this. This is not even a technical problem, this is an ethical problem. If this uninstall breaks that OS, I'll reinstall this OS. Since decades now, anyway, I had to take the painful habit of not to rely on that OS for the safety of my files. And more than ever today I'm forced to work on external disks, to have a minimal hope that my work won't disappear into thin air with all the rest when the APFS file system will, inevitably, fail.

I've never had any problems uninstalling anything this way since 8 years that I use TrashMe (we're not speaking about F$MyMac, here, let's be serious one moment), never anything "useful" or "irreplaceable" erased, never any pref file, any extension, any link to this extension, missed during uninstall. And I reassure you, his doesn't touch either to the spy info which shows to the World the list of all our installs, and which I'd greatly prefer be accessible only by me, myself, incidentally.

And no, I don't think — at all — that it is just a cosmetic problem to see files and extensions aged of 2011 constantly reinstalled in our new system, and worse yet in our new Mac, by Time Machine during each and every restauration of our simple desktop preferences, until today in 2018.

How many years more shall we have to DIY constant reboots in 'Safe Mode' to clear system cache(s) of about 100GB? How many years more Time Machine will let wallow its old ill hogs on our disks, local backups dating from 2012 that it is — incidentally — totally unable to open by itself? And so on.

And to be more precise, personally I encounter considerably more problems with all what I cannot erase, remove or disable in this OS than with what I could accidentally destroy in it.

Any case, we wouldn't have this constant and systematic contention about always the same subject if macOS deigned to provide a packages-based installation system, with a checking of all dependances and incompatibilities at every install/uninstall. Send only the app to the trash to uninstall it doesn't uninstall it really. Period.

Almojgar wrote:

If this uninstall breaks that OS, I'll reinstall this OS.

But it's not about you. Remember the context. We are here to help other people with their computer problems. Often they don't have backups. They don't know what any of those files do. Many people can't differentiate a simple "app zapper" that I might complain about from a Big Name Scamware app.

Any case, we wouldn't have this constant and systematic contention about always the same subject if macOS deigned to provide a packages-based installation system, with a checking of all dependances and incompatibilities at every install/uninstall. Send only the app to the trash to uninstall it doesn't uninstall it really. Period.

Unfortunately, Apple considers that a solved problem. Mac App Store apps can be dragged to the trash. That doesn't delete the container folders, but they don't take much space. And if they do, Apple has features to "manage" storage. This is as good as it is going to get. The Mac is never going to have the installation architecture that Windows had in 1995.

Hello macfrombrampton,

Until the introduction of the Mac App Store, the Mac had no installer/uninstaller architecture. Many apps simply cannot be completely uninstalled. A few, very high quality apps come with official uninstallers that will remove all traces of themselves. But apps like this are becoming rare.

Many people use “app zappers” but such tools are misleading. They can miss some components, not just leaving some files still installed, but even leaving some software still running forever in the background. Even worse, these ”app zappers” can delete too many files. Many of the files that an “app zapper” finds are actually operating system metadata files that should never be deleted. Even worse, scam apps often use this kind of “app zapper” feature to lure new customers.

Ideally, you should only install software from the Mac App Store. This software is forbidden from writing files outside of its private container. You can delete a Mac App Store app just by dragging it to the trash.

For any other type of software, you have to make sure you know how to uninstall it before you start. Usually, but not always, if the app is distributed as a stand-alone app that you install by dragging it to your applications folder, then you can usually remove it by dragging the app to the trash. If an app has an installer, and especially if the installer asks for your password, then you will not be able to unistall it by dragging it to the trash. In some cases, scam apps will lie about their uninstallation procedure. Unfortunately, it is impossible for end users to tell when this is happening. When in doubt, stick with the Mac App Store.

Almojgar wrote:

No Comment.

Why not? That is an excellent example. Consider these important points:

1) You omitted at least one line from that list. I wonder what those lines show;

2) MalwareBytes is software that does have a good and functional uninstaller;

3) MalwareBytes includes a kernel extension. Kernel extensions in High Sierra are tightly controlled by the operating system and under System Integrity Protection. Said kernel extension is not on your list. Can the "app zapper" even remove it due to the tight OS control?

4) 9 of the items on that list were created by, and are managed by, the operating system, not MalwareBytes. 3rd party apps should not be modifying operating system files.

5) 3 of the items on that list are persistence files for background processes. Does the "app zapper" correctly stop those processes and unload the launchd tasks?

6) And what about that kernel extension? Does the "app zapper" do anything about that?

So what would happen if you deleted all of these files? No way to tell really. For MalwareBytes specifically, any of the following could occur:

1) Processes could be left running in the background until restart

2) A kernel extension could be left installed forever. What exactly does MalwareBytes do when only the kernel extension is installed? Does anyone know?

3) System cache files are corrupted. This shouldn't cause any problems however.

4) Software like this saves metadata in more places that is listed by the "app zapper". There are numerous system databases that maintain records of MalwareBytes and manage system resources. What happens to that data now? This could cause problems in the future. Suppose the user decides to try an updated version of MalwareBytes. Because the app has been incorrectly uninstalled, a reinstall might fail. And I'm not just speculating here. When MalwareBytes first started using a privileged helper, I played around with it. I discovered that it was very easy to get MalwareBytes into an invalid state where it could no longer be reinstalled. I don't know if this is just a problem with MalwareBytes or with any apps that uses privileged helpers. MalwareBytes now has even more hooks into the operating system now that it includes a kernel extension.

5) System install receipts are gone, erasing any evidence that the user had ever installed MalwareBytes. So, if an OP reports problems installing MalwareBytes, how is anyone to know that it had been installed before and then been scrambled by an "app zapper"?

Last but not least, I want to reiterate that MalwareBytes is a well-made app. It has a good uninstaller and is a "good citizen" on macOS. What about all the other apps that aren't such good citizens? What about apps that have associated license management software running 24x7 in the background that an "app zapper" would ignore? Everything I have listed above is a best-case scenario.

anonyme4321 wrote:

App installed from the Mac App Store can create folders in your home directory though, and those folder don't go away when you drag the app to the trash.

Correct. But those folders usually don't take up much space. They might also contain saved data. When people experience problems, the often try to delete and reinstall software. That never helps, but most people don't know that. If they use an "app zapper", they might also lose their data.

You have to agree that when a software doesn't come from the Mac App Store, and doesn't have an uninstaller, "App zappers" are a good way to easily find the app's files and delete them (arguably easier than with a search tool).

Now of course it can cause corruption as you explained but most of those apps, as shown in the screenshot, give you the option to individually select each file to delete.

anonyme4321 wrote:

You have to agree that when a software doesn't come from the Mac App Store, and doesn't have an uninstaller, "App zappers" are a good way to easily find the app's files and delete them (arguably easier than with a search tool).

Yes. I do agree with that. I wouldn't necessarily call that a "good" way, but rather a "less bad" way. I would rather see people use an "app zapper" that go digging around in hidden directories by hand, for example. The problem with app zappers is that they make it (apparently) easy and people might use them even when they shouldn't.

quote: "But it's not about you. Remember the context. We are here to help other people with their computer problems. Often they don't have backups. They don't know what any of those files do. Many people can't differentiate a simple "app zapper" that I might complain about from a Big Name Scamware app."

I perfectly agree on this, except the facts that:

1- We are definitely here to help others, but I'd appreciate that this full-time job be performed by Apple employees themselves, not by willingly-enlisted slave-workers. Personally I always hated receive hits of shovel in place of the main responsibles.

2- It is that OS itself that puts us in this tricky situation of not being able to simply format to zero the system disk and replace it by a clean install, without erasing at the same time our 8 years of work in our own workspace. This kind of totally interdependent install can certainly work for the ones who use their machine just to browse the web and chat a tad with their contacts, but certainly not for professional users.

Today, this OS doesn't even let me enough room on my disk to do even casual things. At this time I'm not working on my professional photos, I'm at a remote camp site and just make some photos in the forest, however the 128GB disk of this MacBook Pro is already full up to the brim after two weeks, therefore I suspect that everybody has the same problem and should one day or another be forced to consider using systematically an external disk for his work.

It's not so complicated nor so expensive, just a USB-3 to SATA adapter and a SSD disk plugged directly to it without case, and voilà. But it's not delivered with your Mac. Today, it's always to you, yourself, to DIY some shaky method to get this system working at minimum of your requirements. Exactly like most of answers in this forum, besides...

Install this same large disk inside your Mac, and two weeks later it will be equally full of OS-related things you never, ever, wanted to see there. Even if you upgrade to a much more powerful configuration, you'll never, ever get enough of RAM or disk space, the system will always give you, sparcily, the strict minimum of crumbs remaining after its own background tasks.

Everything is like this, today. This OS never lets us a vital minimum for working quietly. Nor enough RAM. Neither enough disk space. Whatever the size of both.

Neither, visibly, a decent method for installing/uninstalling our apps, safely and completely.

In my very humble opinion, if some third-party app of 6.5MB is able to do that so well, it should be not so complicated for the system itself to recognise, when you put something into the Trash, all the files, extensions, prefs, etc. that are linked only to this application and put them too into the Trash...

macfrombrampton wrote:

Is there an application that uninstalls itself completely?

There are many such apps. MalwareBytes is one good example. There are many apps that are self-contained and can be uninstalled just by dragging them to the trash.

However, it is very unusual for an app to simply go looking for all files that have the app's bundle ID in their name. That would be a disaster. The operating system stores lots of data about apps and often uses an app's bundle ID in the file name. It is the operating system that creates most of these files. While most people happily delete these files and notice no ill effects, that would be considered a major technical and ethical problem for a developer. You don't go messing around with files you don't own.

There are similar arguments for those "container" folders. That is a user's data. There is no way for an app to tell if a user is uninstalling an app to install a new version, to debug some problem, or just might change their mind later. Automatically deleting a user's data makes users very, very angry.

The sad fact is that when most people get up in arms over apps leaving "junk" files, they are talking about files that said app did not create and has no business deleting. I see this very frequently. Yet users never seem to notice apps that don't have uninstaller when they should. That gets us where we are today. There are a ton of scam apps and "app zappers" and an ever growing number of apps that don't bother.

You have to agree that when a software doesn't come from the Mac App Store, and doesn't have an uninstaller,

If it has an installer, but not an uninstaller, then I don't Install it. It is quite clearly Crapware if it doesn't come with an installer or clear uninstall instructions.

When uninstalling an application especially a "app store" application there is no reason All components of an application can't be removed.

They are all removed. The only thing left is your data. If it deleted my data when I moved it to the trash I'd be pretty PO'd.