An OS X app that usage of all apps?

I use a 4 yr old Macbook Pro and the 180 GB hard drive is gagging on the small "freebie" apps that I download because they look so useful. I try to delete the ones I end up not using, but most of the time I just forget about them. When I look in my apps directory there are a lot of names that I do not recognize and don't know if it is safe to delete them without first opening them. I would like to find an app that would log the usage of all my apps and log them by app name, frequency of use, and app location. That would make it easier to determine what to keep and what to delete. Is there such an app out there?

Thank,

R. Martin

Not to sure, but I think that if you don't recognize the name, they are safe to delete. If you end up needing it you can always re-download it. Or better yet buy an external hard drive (they are pretty cheap nowadays) and store your older stuff on that.

Your MacOS already has a Log - of sorts. Go to System Profiler > Logs; or SysProf > Applications > Last Modified.

It's safe to say that anything using the name Apple should be left alone; and relatively safe to say that anything third-party (non-Apple) can be deleted without affecting the MacOS.

Look however at System Preferences > Other to see which applications have burrowed into the MacOS, eg. Flip4Mac, Perian, et al. They should be left alone.

When/if you do delete unwanted apps, use another application to do it. AppCleaner, AppZapper, CleanApp (my fav) are some examples. They will ferret out related files that you never knew existed. You can sent the lot to Trash, or to a designated folder, just to see if their removal has adversely affected the MacOS. Don't be in a hurry!

Thanks

Thanks for the suggestions. I can't bring myself to delete anything if I don't know what it is or what it does. I did find a list of all apps in system profiler and in it I noticed a couple of apps that I will google to see if ok to delete. I still would like to find an app that logged all usage and gave me the list. If I ever find one, I'll post it here.
Thanks,
R. Martin

rbmartiniv said:

I can't bring myself to delete anything if I don't know what it is or what it does.

Click to expand...

That's a marvelous inhibition.

A suggestion ... Ensure you create a bootable backup and start deleting as suggested above.

If you deleted something that you needed , restore from backup.

Cheers ... McBie

Also some of these uninstaller applications have a protected apps list, it will keep you from deleting applications that OS X needs. TrashMe