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Ploki

macrumors 601
Original poster
Jan 21, 2008
4,326
1,561
i have TONS of deleted software, but preferences stay... and the search wont dig into them. where can i change preferences so i can search through "protected" files as well?
 
I don't know how to rectify your problem but for the future I would recommend running AppTrap, that way when you put the apps in the Trash it searches and deletes all of the associated pref files you describe. And it's free. :)
 
I don't know how to rectify your problem but for the future I would recommend running AppTrap, that way when you put the apps in the Trash it searches and deletes all of the associated pref files you describe. And it's free. :)

I 2nd AppTrap, for a free app it's really good ;)
 
Now may be a good time to learn your way around the terminal and UNIX, which will allow you a thousand things no one gui app would do. For searching for files, I usually use the locate utility:

cd /usr/libexec
sudo ./locate.updatedb


after prompting for your password, this constructs the locate database. After which simply type in

locate pattern

where pattern matches a string you want to search for. For example

locate plist | grep -i aperture

returns the pathnames of all plist files (preferences, etc) files on the system belonging to Aperture.
 
thank you guys.. i had "appcleaner", but it just doesnt work for AU plugins.

yeroen thanks, i got some fileS, but i still didnt find it. thats because its probably not there in the first place :D thanks anyway, very useful tip! i hate it that "search" doesnt go through preferences.. :S
 
You may not need search to remove programs, because there is only a few places where apps typically install stuff. Use Finder to check these folders.

<your home dir>/Library/Application Support
<your home dir>/Library/Preferences
<your home dir>/Library/PreferencePanes
<your home dir>/Library/Internet Plug-Ins

<root of hard drive>/Library/Application Support
<root of hard drive>/Library/Preferences
<root of hard drive>/Library/PreferencePanes
<root of hard drive>/Library/Internet Plug-Ins
 
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