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    How to uninstall a program in Mac

    Discussion in 'Apple and Mac OS X' started by silkroute_31, Mar 20, 2008.

  1. silkroute_31

    silkroute_31 Notebook Enthusiast

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    hi guyz,
    This topic might have been already dealt with but I couldn't find it. I really need to get rid off some of the prgrams in my Mac but dont know how to do it./...
    any help would be great....
    thanks
     
    silkroute_31, Mar 20, 2008
    #1
  2. bmwrob

    bmwrob Notebook Virtuoso

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    Basically, you just drag them into the trash, silkroute. That's really all you need to do.
     
    bmwrob, Mar 20, 2008
    #2
  3. niemassacre

    niemassacre Notebook Evangelist

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    You can just drag an application from the Applications folder into the trash, and then empty the trash. To make sure that ALL parts of the program are really gone, though, you may want to get this utility, AppDelete:

    http://www.macupdate.com/info.php/id/23149

    By using that, you'll ensure you don't have any leftover files or preference lists.
     
    niemassacre, Mar 20, 2008
    #3
  4. Raymond Luxury-Yacht

    Raymond Luxury-Yacht Notebook Consultant

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    You can use spotlight to locate components of the program outside the .app package; and delete them.

    If you do leave them around, they won't do harm, though. Just to keep it tidy, (and not waste harddrive space!) it's advisable to erase them nonetheless.

    All this is totally safe, and completely unlike the Windows system where programs scatter little files and registry entries all over the place, which, if they were to get deleted, moved, or whathever, without the help of an elaborate uninstall application, lead to *a lot* of trouble.
     
    Raymond Luxury-Yacht, Mar 20, 2008
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  5. r0k

    r0k Notebook Evangelist

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    Let's say you want to delete Firefox. You drag firefox.app to the trash. Firefox.app is really a folder filled with all the little giblets that would normally spill all over a windows system. The only things left behind would be your user folder with all your cache and cookies and so forth. This is where you can either use the spotlight or a 3rd party program like appdelete.

    When I dragged MS Office to the trash, OS X was smart enough to get rid of file associations but it wasn't smart enough to guess I wanted word documents to go to neooffice. I had to change the association myself using "get info" ("open with" is not the place to change system-wide associations on a Mac).
     
    r0k, Mar 20, 2008
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  6. Sam

    Sam Notebook Virtuoso

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    You can find this information on the New Mac Owners section of the Mac Switcher's Guide :).
     
    Sam, Mar 20, 2008
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  7. ItsDaKronic

    ItsDaKronic Notebook Consultant

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    I use appdelete to delete programs because it gets rid of all the files connected to that program. If you just drag the application to the trash sometimes unnecessary files are left behind just taking up HD space. So you should definitely consider appdelete.
     
    ItsDaKronic, Mar 20, 2008
    #7