uninstallingmacapps

HowTo Uninstall Applications on Mac OS X

Uninstalling an application from a Mac is pretty easy

Applications in OS X compared to Windows.
In Windows, most applications can be uninstalled by going to the control panel and selecting Add / Remove Software, where you are presented with a list of installed applications. This works fairly well most of the time, but periodically there are issues, and typically not all the information is removed from the Windows registry causing eventual slowdowns of your computer.

In Mac OS X, all of the files required to run a program are packaged in a .APP application package (if you go to your Applications Folder and right click on an application, you will see a menu item called "Show Contents", selecting that will show you all the files). Settings for individuals are stored in the user's Library in separate .PLIST (preference list) files. Since there is no single repository, this makes installing and uninstalling applications very easy. However, typically most applications do not have an uninstaller.

When uninstalling applications from your Mac, you can purchase or download various applications to take care of it, or you can follow the steps below.

Step 1: Removing the Application

The first step is to open your Finder and browse to your Applications folder. Select the application that you want to uninstall and simply drag it into the Trash Bin.

For the most part, you can stop here, since the application file is now removed from your Applications folder. However, most applications store preference and settings in Preference List (.plist) files in the Library folder.

Step 2: Removing Application Settings

To remove the Application settings, Mac OS X comes with a great tool, Spotlight. Spotlight is a search tool for information on your Mac like files, folders, email messages etc. In Leopard and later (10.5), Spotlight does not search the Library (where Applications Settings are located) by default.

First we will want to enable Spotlight to search the Library by telling Spotlight to include System Files in the search results.

Step 2.a: Open up spotlight from Finder (Command - F) or by pressing (Option - Command - Space).

Step 2.b: To enable searching of Library and Preference files, click the Plus (+) button as indicated in the screen shot below. This will allow you to enable Spotlight to search for System Files

Step 2.c: Expand the dropdown (typically says "Kind") and select "Other", as shown in the screenshot below.

Step 2.d: When you select other, a list of search attributes will be displayed. Check the box to the right of the search attribute for "System Files".

Step 2.e: After you select "System Files" and click OK, you will be presented with a second dropdown menu with the choices for "Don't Include" and "Include". Choose "Include".

Step 2.e: With Spotlight set to Search the System Files, type into the search box (upper right) the name of your application. Drag appropriate files into the Trash. (Do Not trash any files that start with com.apple). This should get rid of any preference files used by the application. and this completes your uninstall of the application.