Uninstall Mac OS X software properly
Clean up after uninstalling apps
Part 2: Clean up after uninstalling apps |
Uninstallers frequently don't remove every trace of a program and many programs do not come with uninstallers, so after you have removed an application you must then clean up the remaining files and folders. An application's files are usually stored in the /Applications folder on the boot disk. Software installers mostly do this automatically and with programs you install manually it is suggested that you drag the application to this folder, so this is where to look for them.
The application may create a subfolder (and an application can actually be a folder), there may be just one item or several, such as an application and a help or readme file, so after dragging the application icon to the Trash, just check that there aren't any other files or folders that you have missed.
There is a special folder that some software uses called Library and you can see it in your Home folder if you open a Finder window. It's location on the disk is /Users/YourName/Library. If you have removed Program X from Company Y and there is still a Program X or Company Y folder in the Library folder it is usually OK to delete it by dragging it to the Trash.
An important subfolder of Library is Application Support and almost all programs store information like program configuration settings in here. 
There will be a folder named after the application or company and it is usually easy to see what a particular program has created. You should delete the folder or files belonging to the application you have removed by dragging them to the Trash
Before you start deleting folders willy nilly though, you should be aware that many companies produce more than one program and a folder named after a company might contain files or subfolders for several different applications. So if you have three programs from Company X, the Company X folder might contain a subfolder for each of the three applications. You therefore need to open the folder and delete only the subfolder for the application you are removing. Of course, if you've only got one application from a company then you can delete the company folder along with the application folder.
Another subfolder of Library is Caches and this is used to store recently or frequently accessed information. There may be a file or folder for the application you are removing and you can select it and send it to the Trash because it won't be needed any more.
Delete your preferences
Nearly all applications have a Preferences menu and it displays a window that enables you to configure various options. All the options that an application sets are stored on disk and they are in a special folder that you will find in your Library folder. Open a Finder window, go to your home folder, open Library and then open Preferences.
The files that you see in here might seem to be strangely named, but there is a sort of logic to them. If you have Mozilla Firefox, for example, you will see a file called org.mozilla.firefox.plist and this is where Firefox stored all its configuration the options. If you uninstall an application either using an uninstaller or manually, you need to go to the Preferences folder and delete the plist file.
(Tip: if you are having a problem with an application then deleting this file can sometimes cure it by resetting all configuration options.)
Too many fonts?
Fonts are, of course, very useful and a few are actually essential to the operating system because they are used for the display of text on the screen in built in applications. However, if you have a large number of fonts they may slow down the system.
Many fonts are provided with OS X of course, but additional ones can be added by the applications that you install. A desktop publishing program might come with hundreds or even thousands of fonts and while it might be exciting browsing them, you should ask yourself whether you actually need them all. Are there some that you never use? If there are, you should consider removing them to free up system resources and disk space because they can affect performance.
To view the fonts on your computer and to remove ones you don't want, open a Finder window, go to the Applications folder and run Font Book. Select All Fonts in the Collection list and then select a font in the Fonts list. If you don't want it, select Remove on the File menu. You must be careful not to remove any that are used by the applications on your computer or they may fail to work properly.
How can you tell? There isn't a foolproof method, but usually fonts that are easy to read are often used, but fonts that aren't usually aren't used. For example, fancy caligraphic old English fonts, creepy/spooky dripping blood fonts, handwriting scripts and so on are not used by OS X in the user interface or built in applications and they are therefore usually safe to delete. Foreign languages usually aren't needed either, so Chinese, Japanese, Arabic and so on aren't useful if you cannot speak the lingo.
Other users and libraries
Font Book is a useful tool for browsing the font collections on your computer and for removing font families that you will never need, but eagle-eyed readers may have spotted something interesting in the Collections list on the left. There are three options at the top: All fonts, User, and Computer. If more than one person uses your Mac you may well have created separate user accounts for each of them. Each user has their own personal folder in /Users and in /Users/YourName is your own personal Library folder that contains items that only you can access. Your own personal Library, Fonts, Caches, and Application Support and other folders are stored here. Every user has a similar Library folder in their personal folder.
We have seen how to remove an application by going into your own Library folder and Application Support, but what about user users' Library and Application Supoport folders? To completely remove an application and all its data files you must log on to OS X using each user account and clear out the user's private folders as described earlier. Just clearing your own will not remove everything.
Open a Finder window and select the hard disk drive - the root of the disk - and you will discover another Library folder. This one contains items that apply to every user of the computer. It's a sort of system-wide public one and applications store information in there that needs to be available to everyone that uses the computer. There are Application Support, Fonts, Caches and other folders and in addition to clearing out your own personal Library, Application Support and other users folders as described earlier, you need to clear out any left-over files from this one too. Go and look for Company X or Program Y folders.
Hidden files
Just a final word about files - some of them are hidden and if you only remove the files you see in Finder windows, you might not remove every trace of an application.
If you use a program like Xfolders or muCommander to explore the hard disk drive you will discover lots of files and folders you never new existed. You can actually configure Finder to show hidden files and you'll be amazed at what you see.
Browse around your home folder and you might find some items related to the software you are uninstalling. You can remove them as they are no longer needed.
You can actually get Finder to display these hidden files and folders and there are many tweaking and customisation utilities that provide this facility.
One such utility is xMod. Whatever your favourite tweaking utility, just look for the 'show hidden files' option in the Finder section.
Useful software
At the start of this article you probably thought that it was a fairly trivial task to remove any unwanted software from your Apple Mac, 
but now It might seem like a lot of hard work! All those places where programs can store information must be cleared out and it can be a hassle.
You would be surprised how much rubissh accumulates on a well used Mac and it could well be one of the reasons why computers seem to get slower as they get older.
Fortunately, there are utilities available that can make the task of removing software a lot easier than doing it manually. You simply run the uninstaller, drag an application to its window or icon and drop it. An uninstaller scans the system for files used by the application and then removes everything automatically.
They are very useful, but it's always worth double checking what they are about to delete before you actually go ahead and delete the files, and most utilities can show you this. Of course, it is also worth checking that the uninstaller utility hasn't missed anything, so enable hidden files in Finder or use Xfolders or muCommander and take a look at the hard disk drive.
- AppCleaner: Uninstall utility
- Application Annihilator: Uninstall utility
- AppTrap: Uninstall utility intercepts programs dragged to the Trash and removes associated files.
- DesInstaller: Reads the installation script created by .pkg files and removes all files added.
- FontNuke: Removes damaged fonts and deletes font caches.
- Onyx: General system utility, can delete various caches too.
- Maintenance: General system utility, can delete various caches too.
Finally....
Don't forget to empty the Trash! OS X doesn't delete files, it just moves them to the Trash folder. This is useful if you ever want to put back a file you deleted, but you won't get the disk space back that an application used until you empty the Trash folder.
Go back to part 1: Uninstall Mac OS X software properly
