Uninstalling

Uninstalling

With all of those "Drag and Drop" apps, just head to your Applications folder; grab the app, then drag and drop it into the Trashcan. Easy enough - it's gone.

Before you ask, yes it does leave behind a file or two. These are primarily a preference file. They're called .plist files in OS X.

These files are not stored in the system folders (or registry - since there is no registry) like they are in Windows. They do not affect the startup speed of the OS, they are not loaded when the OS starts up, nor in fact, do they do anything to slow down the running of your machine that you're use to in that other OS. They are so small as to be insignificant related to the amount of space on drives today. For everyone new to OS X, I recommend and you really can just simply ignore their existence.

Now for those apps that had their own installer, these are a different breed. For these apps you will almost always need an uninstaller. In almost all cases, you do not want to simply drag the app to the trash. The reason most of these apps have an installer, is because they do indeed install files into your system folders. Due to this, you will need it's uninstaller.

For the most part these apps do provide an uninstaller, although, you may have to hunt for it. Many of these type apps install themselves into a Folder rather than just an icon in the Applications folder. Inside that folder is the first place you'll want to look. Here are a couple of examples:

You'll notice that each of them has an uninstaller.pkg inside their folder. This is what you'll use to remove them from your Mac.

Certain types of apps install themselves as Preferences in OS X. Perian for example. (If you haven't already installed Perian, you probably should.) For these, you will head into System Preferences and open the preference pane for the app. You'll find these in the Other section of System Preferences.

Once you open the Preference Pane, you should find an uninstall button there.

then there are the annoying apps. These either have a separate uninstaller pkg in the window where you installed the original app from or they use the same installer to uninstall the app or do not even offer an uninstaller. Fortunately most of the legitimate apps do have an uninstaller.

Those apps that have an uninstaller pkg listed right there in the same window when you open the dmg to install it, make sure you drag that uninstaller to your Applications folder so that you'll have it if/when you need it.

For the rest, those that use the same installer to uninstall the app are a pitr, and if you don't find an uninstaller in the typical places above, about the best you can do is a google search "yourapp uninstall" to find out how to remove it. And for those apps that crossover with multiple OSs, you might want to add "Mac yourapp uninstall".