I recently had to uninstall some apps and it’s common for apps to litter files throughout /Library and ~/Library.<p>The UX from early MacOS days is you can drag/drop the App to the Trash Can to uninstall it.<p>Does MacOS actually clean up the misc. files applications leave at some point?
Been using AppCleaner[0] with great success for years now.<p>[0] <a href="https://freemacsoft.net/appcleaner/" rel="nofollow">https://freemacsoft.net/appcleaner/</a>
This actually points to an underlying weakness of the Unix/macOS permissions system: There is no concept of <i>apps.</i><p>By now the filesystem permissions hierarchy really should be extended into Group → User → App.<p>You can see the half-baked workarounds many operating systems use like controlling access to entire folders like Documents, Downloads, Photos etc.<p>Why not just make it fine-grained and let us permit and deny apps' access to individual files, and see which app created which file?
> Well, looks like we got a working uninstaller with a good user experience for free.<p>Yes, but the downside is that you're now relying on an unstable interface (as I understand it, this behaviour is not documented as a contract anywhere).
Apple would be free to break you at any time.
Last time I checked, you could use `brew uninstall --cask --force --zap` to uninstall an app thoroughly.<p>That would work reliably for me, even for installs not actually managed by Homebrew.
Why are an applications files physically moved elsewhere in the first place? Simply leave everything in the app bundle, and put symlinks for anything the OS is expecting elsewhere. Cleaning up app deletion would then be pruning dead symlinks.<p>Such a system could also potentially be enforced. Is it a symlink? If "yes" allow the write to ~/Library or wherever else. If not, deny it.<p>Genuine question: is there some reason not to do this?
As mentioned elsewhere, the trusted workaround is AppCleaner (<a href="https://freemacsoft.net/appcleaner/" rel="nofollow">https://freemacsoft.net/appcleaner/</a>). I just wish it was open source.<p>An attempt at an open source AppCleaner, I worked on a script, called zap (<a href="https://github.com/idianal/zap">https://github.com/idianal/zap</a>), that aims to replicate much of the same functionality (without a GUI). The benefit for users is they can see exactly what it is doing on their computer.<p>Here I outline the limitations: <a href="https://idian.io/posts/2022/writing-an-app-uninstaller-for-macos/" rel="nofollow">https://idian.io/posts/2022/writing-an-app-uninstaller-for-m...</a>.
That's neat! Recently I've been looking for resources on getting a py2app MacOS app notarized by Apple but haven't been able to find any precedent. Would love to see a tutorial for that too since you guys seems to be domain experts in this
question:has anyone succeeded in uninstalling kite (python autocomplete for spyder) at all locations.<p>I was tricked into selecting to install it one time installing anaconda/spyder. I’ve since removed all of that including anaconda and followed the now scrubbed uninstall instructions on their (defunct kite’s) website.<p>However a .kite folder keeps showing up in my ~/<p>I’ve deleted tons of times and searched thru /library and ~/library<p>I resorted to locking .kite hoping that if some hidden process were using it it won’t have write access anymore. But admittedly I have no idea what’s creating this dir and the reason for it or if I defeated it by locking that .kite folder down.<p>Thx
Somehow I misread the title as making apps impossible to remove, glad to see it was the opposite.<p>It's the second time I read about Lunar, and my curiosity led me to their impressive monitor database: <a href="https://db.lunar.fyi/" rel="nofollow">https://db.lunar.fyi/</a>
The thing I hate more than anything else about technology is when people make things that are intentionally shitty, for no other reason than they want it to be shitty.<p><pre><code> "Hello billion dollar company, I would like a way to install and uninstall my software in your operating system."
"No."
"Wh.... huh? Please?"
"Pay us money and go through our app store."
"Um....why? No? Please? Can't you just let me make software and give it to users, without going through you?"
"No."
"Why not?"
"We don't like it when you do that."
"So?"
"So you only get to do what we say, how we say."
"Why?"
"It makes us happy."
"And what about the users' happiness?"
*laughs in dollar bills*</code></pre>
Uninstallable is nice, but how about something on making apps <i>not</i> in the app store trivially installable without developers paying Apple a ransom fee?<p>Oh that's right, we can't control that, just have to pay the tax.