A Step-by-Step Guide to Completely Uninstall Apps on a Mac
We all are aware of how easy it is to install new applications from the App Store on the Mac. Many Mac users often have installed unwanted apps. These unused apps take up valuable storage space and can slow down your system. Mac users can free up storage space on their computers by uninstalling unwanted ones.
The process of uninstalling apps on Mac is not as straightforward as it seems. It’s important to know how to properly uninstall apps. Normal logic tells us that it is an easy process.
One would think that dragging an unwanted app to the Trash will uninstall the app and free up storage. It would be the case if you were dragging normal files like documents and movies to the Trash.
But doing the same for apps often leaves tons of leftover junk files on your hard drive. These files might not be too huge. But rinse and repeat this process multiple times for multiple apps and you would be left with a slightly slower system than before.
Hence, it does become important to know how to completely remove an Application on macOS.
In this post, we will show how to uninstall an app completely on your Mac.
Table of Contents
How to use Finder to Uninstall apps:
Open Finder: You can open Finder by either clicking on the Finder icon in the Dock or by clicking on the desktop and selecting “Finder” from the menu bar.
Navigate to the Applications Folder: In the Finder window, click on “Applications” in the sidebar to open the Applications folder. This is where all your installed apps are located.
Find the App You Want to Uninstall: Find the app you have to uninstall in the Applications folder. You can sort the apps by name or date modified to make it easier to find the app you’re looking for.
Search For App Leftovers: Go to Finder, now select Go > Go to Folder after clicking on the menu bar and type /Library/, and hit click on Go. Search for any folders with the same name as the app you deleted. These files may be located in various folders such as ~/Applications/ ~/Library/Application Support/, ~/Library/Preferences/, and ~/Library/Caches/.
Remove App Leftovers: If you need to delete the folder with any leftover items, you can press control and click on its name and select Move to Trash from the drop-down menu, now open the Bin, and empty it.
Uninstall Mac Apps with Launchpad:
Open Launchpad: To get started, click on the Launchpad icon in your Dock or press the F4 key on your keyboard to open Launchpad.
Locate the Program You Want to Uninstall: All of your Mac programs will be displayed on the Launchpad screen. Use your trackpad or arrow keys to locate the program you want to uninstall.
Hold Down the Option Key: When you’ve found the program you want to uninstall, hold down the Option key on your keyboard. This will enable the “X” button to appear in the upper-left corner of each program icon.
Uninstall the App: To do this Click on the “X” button present in the upper-left corner of the program icon. A confirmation window will appear, asking you to confirm that you want to delete the program. Now click on the “Delete” button in order to confirm.
Uninstall apps using the Terminal:
Open Terminal by searching for it in Spotlight or by navigating to Applications > Utilities > Terminal.
Type the following command into the Terminal: “ls /Applications/”. This will list all of the applications installed on your Mac.
To delete an app, type the following command into the Terminal: “sudo rm -rf /Applications/ApplicationName.app“. Replace “ApplicationName” with the name of the app you want to delete. Now press Enter and input your administrator password if/when prompted.
Once you’ve entered your password, the Terminal will begin the deletion process. You can confirm that the app has been deleted by typing the “ls /Applications/” command again and verifying that the app is no longer listed.
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