How do I uninstall software on the Macs?

How do I uninstall software on the Macs? There are no options as uninstalling, and most apps don't come with uninstaller. Anyone?

Thanks

you don't

AlexN said:

How do I uninstall software on the Macs? There are no options as uninstalling, and most apps don't come with uninstaller. Anyone?

Thanks

Click to expand...

hey

you don't uninstall on a mac - there is no such thing

find the thing you no longer want

then drag it to the trash - thats it :doctor:

regards

Just drag it to the trash!!

brendan67 said:

hey

you don't uninstall on a mac - there is no such thing

find the thing you no longer want

then drag it to the trash - thats it :doctor:

regards

Click to expand...

hey u posted just before me

Won't they install some preference files to the system? For example, I downloaded the Firefox, if I decided I no longer, do I just drag the firefox.app to the trash? It should have some folder for cache, etc.

uninstall

AlexN said:

Won't they install some preference files to the system? For example, I downloaded the Firefox, if I decided I no longer, do I just drag the firefox.app to the trash? It should have some folder for cache, etc.

Click to expand...

hey

nope

drag to trash job done

regards :doctor:

Wow, that's too good to be true. hmm...

Empty trash ... Duh. Its gone.
Take it out of trash before you MT Trash if you decide you want to keep it.

Be careful when you speak in absolutes.

There are several threads on this topic in the forums: many apps write preference files and whatnot to the ~user/Library and /Library directories, and deleting the app does not get rid of them. You may want to look through those directories to get rid of things that are put there by various installers-- I got rid of GarageBand, and found almost another 2 GB of related files in one of the Library directories.

caribiner23 said:

many apps write preference files and whatnot to the ~user/Library and /Library directories, and deleting the app does not get rid of them. You may want to look through those directories to get rid of things that are put there by various installers-- I got rid of GarageBand, and found almost another 2 GB of related files in one of the Library directories.

Click to expand...

That's what I'm talking about. So, what is the correct way to uninstall software?

AlexN said:

That's what I'm talking about. So, what is the correct way to uninstall software?

Click to expand...

99% of the time, simply Trashing the application is enough.

One of the reasons Uninstall is needed under Windows is the "DLL ****" problem, which arises when two programs rely on the same DLL (or some other shared library.) When this happens, if you don't Uninstall one of them properly, the other program won't run either.

Mac apps don't do that. They're usually self-contained: all their libraries are stored inside the application file itself. (A few utilities aren't, but they should include an "Uninstall" or "Remove" script like on Windows.)

So removing a Mac app is as simple as Trashing the application. Afterward, though, some pieces might be left behind. For most apps, these are tiny, and only take up a few KB each. (For example, OmniGraffle's left-behinds would total 15.6 KB. Firfox seems to have left about 20K on my disk, but that could be up to 50MB or more depending on what your cache settings were.)

Badly behaved programs like GarageBand might leave behind gigabytes of documents behind. For that kind of thing, you can run a Spotlight search for the application name ("Garage," for example) but be careful not to accidentally Trash anything that just happens to have Garage in its name.

It is surprising that so many apps are so simple on a Mac!

Thanks for the info

Just what I wanted to know. I bought myself a mac mini on eBay and am liking it very much. Sounds to simple to be true really.

appzapper

I just type App name or a certain keyword in finder then go and delete the related files. Because like stated earlier in thread, just trashing App icon doesn't get rid of everything. Some third party software does in fact come with a folder and it sometimes contains an uninstaller.

deleting the .plist files are not needed, there are other files that can be associated with the program that could be alot bigger and therefore needed to be deleted to save space. I leave the .plist files on there incase i install the program on there later i will still have my prefferences.

Gee how many ways do I love my new Mac? ......hmmmmm let me count the ways (this is just one more example)!!

Yes, drag to the trash ... but....

there will be some residual files in places like preferences and support files.etc. It's not a problem but they may be there. I normally use spotlight to find anything related to the software i trashed and then i go get it and trash it also.