General app question

I'm new to the mac scene but have had a couple of odd occurances with some apps. Every once and a while I'll try to start an app but it won't load up...the icon will do its little action after I select it but the program doesn't load. The only solution i've found is to uninstall and reinstall the program. For small apps I don't mind doing it but would rather not...but for large apps (like Office which is now the problematic app) I really don't want to do it for fear of accumulating junk files on my HD.

Any ideas?

Why would reinstalling accumulate junk?

First, repair Disk permissions. Applications > Utitlities > Disk Utility . There, press the repair permissions button.

If problem persists, uninstall the entire App safely by using AppZapper (google for it).

Then reinstall.

Get your system updates, too.

I would also say to repair permissions as it could be the problem, however it is rare.

There are files on your computer that end it .plist. These are the preference files for particular apps. I would try deleting these for the apps you are having problems with, and next time instead of reinstalling as your first attempt to fix it, try to delete these files.

I am going to third the permissions repair.
You should also check out the Sticky thread on Basic OS X Troubleshooting.