Sidebar Sidebar
Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.

how to completely remove programs?

K

kincept

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Feb 17, 2008
29
0
Its easy to delete an application, but allot of times there is a trail a mile long of html, pdfs, in twenty languages and when you choose to reinstall the program again it doubles everything.

I am having trouble finding and removing programs in there entirety and everything connected to them?

someone said there are programs that help?
example, I have reason 3.0 and upgraded to 4.0 it had all the 3.0 stuff manuals installed everywhere even though I upgraded it, i had a problem with 4.0 installation and had to delete and start all over but all the extenstion files were all over the place and allmost impossible to delete.

also some pdfs wont let me delete them or htmls even though i deleted the application which is very annoying.like they are stuck or something.
 
what I do is right click the app in the app's folder. hit show content files, erase those, erase the .app file, and then do a spotlight search for the app and delete whatever is relevant in there.
 
99% of the time, doing any "cleaning" is completely unnecessary. If an application shipped with an Installer package, that package can usually be run again to uninstall. If it was just an app bundle, you can delete the app bundle and not worry about anything else—almost all the time, all it'll leave behind is some preference files which are tiny and harmless.
 
Excellent little guide for us newbies types.

One final question: Having used PCs for so long, I'm used to the easy "add/remove programs" part of the control panel, and couldn't find anything like that. If I'm understanding the newbie guide, that's on purpose.

Is there anything out there that will duplicate that particular feature? One advantage is that it allowed me to see various individual items, including add-ons, expansions and the like; so far I can't figure out how to do that on a Mac.

(Basically I've just installed Office Mac 2004; apparently there is a Test-drive program of the same type out there and I'd like to find/uninstall it but not the regular, full program.)

Thanks!
 
kincept said:
Its easy to delete an application, but allot of times there is a trail a mile long of html, pdfs, in twenty languages and when you choose to reinstall the program again it doubles everything.

I am having trouble finding and removing programs in there entirety and everything connected to them?

someone said there are programs that help?
example, I have reason 3.0 and upgraded to 4.0 it had all the 3.0 stuff manuals installed everywhere even though I upgraded it, i had a problem with 4.0 installation and had to delete and start all over but all the extenstion files were all over the place and allmost impossible to delete.

also some pdfs wont let me delete them or htmls even though i deleted the application which is very annoying.like they are stuck or something.
Click to expand...

i use.....

http://www.appzapper.com/

works well
 
Poseidon said:
Excellent little guide for us newbies types.

One final question: Having used PCs for so long, I'm used to the easy "add/remove programs" part of the control panel, and couldn't find anything like that. If I'm understanding the newbie guide, that's on purpose.

Is there anything out there that will duplicate that particular feature? One advantage is that it allowed me to see various individual items, including add-ons, expansions and the like; so far I can't figure out how to do that on a Mac.

(Basically I've just installed Office Mac 2004; apparently there is a Test-drive program of the same type out there and I'd like to find/uninstall it but not the regular, full program.)

Thanks!
Click to expand...

Hi,

as far as I know there is no application that would list all applications allowing you to uninstall right from there.

Here's an overview of where stuff is on your Mac:

  • Applications are in the Applications directory in Macintosh HD/Applications
  • Add-ons and plugins are typically in /Library/Application Support/<application name> or directly in /Application Support
  • Finder contextual menu items are in /Library/Contextual Menu Items
  • Additional System Preferences panes are in /Library/PreferencePanes
  • Dashboard Widgets are in /Library/Widgets

If an item is in Macintosh HD/Library it's available for every user, if it's in <your home directory>/Library it's only available for the respective user.

There is a third Library folder in Macintosh HD/System/Library. It's used by Mac OS X. Don't mess around in there unless you know what you're doing.


I hope this overview will help you to get used to the way applications are handled in Mac OS X. Most applications behave correctly and use these directory structures (especially the Application Support folder).

Just come back to me if you need more information.
/Rupert
 
killmoms said:
99% of the time, doing any "cleaning" is completely unnecessary. If an application shipped with an Installer package, that package can usually be run again to uninstall. If it was just an app bundle, you can delete the app bundle and not worry about anything else—almost all the time, all it'll leave behind is some preference files which are tiny and harmless.
Click to expand...

So pretty much any left over files don't have to be removed they can just stay where they are to avoid deleting something important right?
Thanks For You Help In Advanced
 
killmoms said:
99% of the time, doing any "cleaning" is completely unnecessary. If an application shipped with an Installer package, that package can usually be run again to uninstall. If it was just an app bundle, you can delete the app bundle and not worry about anything else—almost all the time, all it'll leave behind is some preference files which are tiny and harmless.
Click to expand...

Not necessarily. When upgrading any program, you need to delete all of the data left by the previous version to ensure maximum compatibility of the newer version (or when reinstalling the same version of the same program).

ADKIc3mAnX said:
So pretty much any left over files don't have to be removed they can just stay where they are to avoid deleting something important right?
Thanks For You Help In Advanced
Click to expand...

If you use a program such as EasyFind to search for the application name, it will show you all files associated with the app. You can delete those without worry and to avoid deleting something important.
 
I too just did a clean install back to Snow Leopard so I could do a once and for all clean upgrade up to Lion and found myself with needing to completely delete a program to cut down on the clutter that accumulates on my "new" mac.

In my case the program is Google's "Chrome" web browser, which I only installed for two extensions it has for Facebook, but since have found out that Safari has these extensions now (!) So the good news is I can just use Safari but the bad news is I already downloaded and installed Chrome...eff.

Everyone on this thread gives some uninstaller program as the solution but then this mackindergarten guy came the closest to what I actually wanted: a way to scour your computer and get rid of any files that have to DO with an unwanted program, without installing ANOTHER program to get rid of it (kind of goes against the whole idea)

mackindergarten said:
Hi,

as far as I know there is no application that would list all applications allowing you to uninstall right from there.

Here's an overview of where stuff is on your Mac:

  • Applications are in the Applications directory in Macintosh HD/Applications
  • Add-ons and plugins are typically in /Library/Application Support/<application name> or directly in /Application Support
  • Finder contextual menu items are in /Library/Contextual Menu Items
  • Additional System Preferences panes are in /Library/PreferencePanes
  • Dashboard Widgets are in /Library/Widgets

If an item is in Macintosh HD/Library it's available for every user, if it's in <your home directory>/Library it's only available for the respective user.

There is a third Library folder in Macintosh HD/System/Library. It's used by Mac OS X. Don't mess around in there unless you know what you're doing.


I hope this overview will help you to get used to the way applications are handled in Mac OS X. Most applications behave correctly and use these directory structures (especially the Application Support folder).

Just come back to me if you need more information.
/Rupert
Click to expand...

I did all this and looked in the aforementioned places, but does anyone else have an idea of what I may have missed?

Regards,

Grant
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Register on MacRumors! This sidebar will go away, and you'll see fewer ads.
Top Bottom
Back