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- Jun 12, 2011
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- Melbourne, Australia and Ubud, Bali, Indonesia
- Your Mac's Specs
- 2021 M1 MacBook Pro 14" macOS 14.4.1, Mid 2010MacBook 13" iPhone 13 Pro max, iPad 6, Apple Watch SE.
does appTrap get rid of more left over files from trashed apps than App Cleaner does... which is what I have been using.
Hi lori5060, the topic of complete removal of old or redundant apps is always an interesting subject. To start with often the remnants of old removed apps are so small as to be insignificant and usually harmless but just to add to your arsenal of handy apps you might like to instal Find Any File (FAF). https://apps.tempel.org/FindAnyFile/index.php. This is the developer, Thomas Templeman's (a really nice guy) page and completely safe, he also mentions alternatives and other specific search apps for particular purposes. I have had cause to contact Thomas a couple of times and he has replied same day. This app is "donationware," you will note that he mentions there is a version on the App Store which is not free.
So, I use a few different ways of deleting and uninstalling unwanted apps. If possible I use the provided uninstaller but sometimes I need to ensure all traces of an app are gone. Especially true where we are talking about eg. browser extensions and malware. This is one place where I find FAF to be really useful. I have used proprietary uninstallers then done a broad search with FAF for the app name to find 10 or more small associated files scattered throughout the system. FAF gives you the option (right click) to delete immediately or move to trash which I prefer.
As stated these are usually small, harmless remnants but they do accumulate over time and my MBP is a product of three previous MBP's so I don't need old redundant files.
I follow an "if in doubt don't remove" policy but still I'm sure I have removed Mb's of useless data thanks to Thomas' great little app.