Remnants of deleted apps in System Settings:

[Sowelu]

Does anyone know how to get rid of remnants of deleted apps in System Settings? In my case in particular, after deleting the 'Ollama' app (and its corresponding system files and folders via 'AppCleaner'), the Menu Bar item remains in System Settings:

I don't know what the 'com.github.Squirrel' item is, but after some Googling, it seems to be related to any app using Squirrel, so I am not sure why there would be a Menu Bar entry as enabling it does nothing, but I have no choice but to leave it because I am not sure which app(s) created it, so I am focused on removing the 'Ollama' Menu Bar item since I know it was the Ollama app that created it.

I ran a quick 'find / -name "*ollama*" 2>/dev/null' command in Terminal, which listed the remnants of Ollama files, so I deleted them all manually, restarted, but this Menu Bar item is still there. I ran the same command again, and nothing populated up, so I am at a loss as to where the files would be located that are causing this Menu Bar item to show up in System Settings.

I also tried deleting this file:

~/Library/GroupContainersAlias/group.com.apple.controlcenter/Library/Preferences/group.com.apple.controlcenter.plist

But no luck after a restart. Anyone else having this issue?

 

[chabig]

Are those under "Allow in the menu bar"?

If so, you might have to manually edit the plist that controls which menulets are displayed.

Step-by-Step Guide​

1. Open Finderand go to your user Library folder:
   • Press Command + Shift + G to open the "Go to Folder" dialog.
   • Enter ~/Library/Preferences/ and press Enter.
2. Locate the file:
   • Look for com.apple.controlcenter.plist (this handles Menu Bar toggles, including third-party apps).
3. Back it up:
   • Duplicate the file (right-click > Duplicate) and rename the copy to something like com.apple.controlcenter-backup.plist. Move the backup to your Desktop for safekeeping.
4. Edit the plist(preferred method to preserve other settings):
   • Right-click the original com.apple.controlcenter.plist and select "Open With" > TextEdit (or use Xcode/PlistEdit Pro if installed for better formatting).
   • The file is XML-formatted. Search (Command + F) for the app's bundle identifier (e.g., com.developer.appname—Google the app if unsure).
   • You'll see entries like:
     text
     
     <key>com.developer.appname</key>
     <dict>
     <!-- Toggle data here -->
     </dict>
     
     
   • Delete the entire <key>...</key> block for that app (including the <dict> contents).
   • Save the file (File > Save).
5. Alternative: Delete the file entirely(resets all Menu Bar toggles—quicker but you'll need to reconfigure):
   • Drag com.apple.controlcenter.plist to the Trash.
   • Empty the Trash.
6. Apply changes:
   • Restart your Mac (Apple menu > Restart).
   • Open System Settings > Menu Bar—the ghost entries should be gone. If you deleted the file, re-enable desired toggles manually.

 

[Sowelu]

Thank you very much for this, but unfortunately, this didn't work either. It's odd, I searched for 'Ollama' and other key words and known devs for other menu bar items (in the com.apple.controlcenter.plist file) but nothing populated, so I just deleted the entire file (after backing it up) and restarted, but all the 'allow in the menu bar' items are still there, including the one I wanted to get rid of, and all the toggles that I had previously set were also still in place.

The Control Center did reset back to default, but not the 'allow in the menu bar' items. Maybe these are in a different plist file since the toggles were still in place as I left them before deleting this file?

 

[Sowelu]

I did a bit more Googling and found the fix - you have to delete this file, then restart:

And they're gone!

Thank you for your help as I was able to use better search terms due to your post. Sounds like these remnants after deleting an app may be a Tahoe bug, but deleting this file is a fix for now.

Thanks again!

 

[chabig]

I did a bit more Googling and found the fix - you have to delete this file, then restart:

That was in the answer I posted above. 😀

 

[Sowelu]

That was in the answer I posted above. 😀

The actual file that points to 3rd party Menu Bar items has a similar but different name and location (under 'Group'):

/Users/user/Library/GroupContainers/group.com.apple.controlcenter/Library/Preferences/group.com.apple.controlcenter.plist

It's funny, because as I was searching for a fix, I found recommendations to look in several different locations for the file to edit or delete, including the one you provided and the one I posted in my initial post, and I think at some point these locations were correct, but Tahoe may have changed where this file lives.

In any event, this looks like another Tahoe bug that Apple needs to fix (unless this falls on developers).

 

[chabig]

The actual file that points to 3rd party Menu Bar items has a similar but different name and location (under 'Group'):

Ok. I’m glad you pointed that out.