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Why doesn't Apple give us an Uninstall app?
- Thread starter Blu101
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Probably because there isn't a single, unified process for uninstalling apps. I would assume that the App Store would make this simple (just drag the app to the trash, because they're always going to be self-contained), but there's too many different places apps can place stuff that Apple can't keep track of unless the company used Apple's installer package system, and the ones that would need an uninstaller typically don't.
jW
jW
I see no point for Apple to make one because not even Window's Add/Remove feature truly uninstalls a program. There are still a lot of registry files, system files that remain after you uninstall the application. The same situation applies to mac os x. The only way to truly uninstall an App is to do a search in finder for all files related to a particular program and then deleting them all.
Yeah, the hard part about that is I don't always know if every file on the search results belonged to the program that I am deleting/uninstalling, can't always tell by the name alone, which then gives you the fear of deleting something you shouldn't be deleting, or something that is used/shared with other software, and no way to confirm for sure...
I know there are a few unistall apps out there for mac (and none are prefect, i.e. they still miss a few files here and there). Will probably start to read up on them to see which one I like and download it...
Good feedback everyone
AppZapper and similar apps are ineffective in removing all files/folders associated with apps being deleted.
The only thorough method is manual deletion:
Best way to FULLY DELETE a program
Apple software doesnt have all the dependency issues that Windows has and also doesnt have .dlls strewn all over the place (as well as all the entries in the registry), since it keeps the the bulk of programs in packages. Preference files and the like dont take much space, so they can be left alone, unless one really feels the need to remove all traces of a program. So, uninstalling a program with Apple merely requires deleting the program for all intents and purposes.
I agree with you mostly, but I don't think that statement is entirely true. I have 1 GB of data in ~/Library/Application Support (not counting the Steam games) and over 5 GB of data in /Library/Application Support.
I never completely understood the issue with orphaned DLLs in Windows. Is it a disk space issue or is there a danger of the wrong DLL getting invoked by accident? Regardless, those files in Application Support on the Mac are probably harmless. But still, they do take up space.
DLLs are executable code. It is not unheard of for different installed applications to require different versions of the same DLL. "Fun" can ensue when an application is launched while an incompatible version of a required DLL is in memory.