It's not free, but it is highly useful for a vast number of other purposes, so if you'd like to get the other features it provides, you can kill two birds with one app, as it were. All we need to Drag n Drop the application to Trash from an Application folder and then Empty Trash bin. AppCleaner is free and gets the job done perfectly.Īlternatively, the automation app, Hazel, automatically finds related files when you delete an app and asks if you'd like to remove those as well. Uninstall apps and programs on Mac OS X is pretty simple and straightforward. Since all these apps mainly do is hunt down these stray plist files, paying for an app like AppZapper is a little ridiculous.

(Leaving them also preserves you application preferences if you later decide to reinstall the app.)Īpplications like AppCleaner are for purists who want to truly remove every last bit of an app when they uninstall it (nothing against purists, though - I fall in that camp). These are tiny text files and usually inconsequential if left behind when you remove an app. The only exception to that is plist files - essentially just application preferences.

The vast majority of apps on the Mac are self-contained, which is why there's no built-in uninstall method in Mac OS X.

Ow to uninstall programs on mac