[HELP] General Mac OS usage questions :) - Printable Version +- Selur's Little Message Board (https://forum.selur.net) +-- Forum: Talk, Talk, Talk (https://forum.selur.net/forum-5.html) +--- Forum: A/V Talk (https://forum.selur.net/forum-6.html) +--- Thread: [HELP] General Mac OS usage questions :) (/thread-1539.html) |
General Mac OS usage questions :) - Selur - 20.09.2020 Thought I open a thread where I post general Mac OS questions in the hope some of the Mac users can help. First question: Is there a "build-in" uninstall somewhere in Mac OS or is it still necessary to remove the content of pkg files manually ? iirc one can do it manually by using: pkgutil --pkgs | grep Hybrid pkgutil --pkg-info the-package-name.pkg pkgutil --only-files --files the-package-name.pkg | tr '\n' '\0' | xargs -n 1 -0 sudo rm -f sudo pkgutil --forget the-package-name.pkg so another related question: In case there is no "build-in" uninstall graphical user interface in Mac OS, is there some recommend (no limited to X uninstalls) freeware to do the job? Cu Selur RE: General Mac OS usage questions :) - shijan - 21.09.2020 There is no system wide uninstaller on mac. So some garbage stays in system when you delete app from applications folder manually. There is useful app https://freemacsoft.net/appcleaner/ It can delete folders and plist files related to app. There is also easyfind app that may help to search for real and system/hidden files https://www.macupdate.com/app/mac/11076/easyfind Sometimes dvelopers include uninstall script if required to delete some special files. As example Vapoursynth installer uninstall.command #!/bin/bash Also for faster navigation it may help to Always Show the User Library Folder https://osxdaily.com/2014/12/16/show-user-library-folder-os-x-yosemite/ RE: General Mac OS usage questions :) - Selur - 21.09.2020 Quote:There is no system wide uninstaller on mac.What a shame. RE: General Mac OS usage questions :) - shijan - 21.09.2020 Is there any system build-in uninstaller on on Linux? RE: General Mac OS usage questions :) - Selur - 21.09.2020 Yes. They are called package managers. Anything that is installed using the package manager usually can be uninstalled using the package manager. So when you make an installer package, on Ubuntu .deb package you can install it through the package manager and uninstall it through the package manager. It's similar to the app store but more open, since it you can add/remove stuff that isn't under the control of the one maintaining the system repository. So it's basically like the app store, but folks can add installers their software that can be installed using the 'app store' without having to register with the maintainer of the OS. Sure you can always install stuff on the OS which doesn't use the package manager, but the developers at least can create packages that use it to install/deinstall stuff. Main problem on Linux is that different distributions Suse/Arch Linux/Debian/... use their own package manager, so as a developer you either give up on the package manager or create an installer for each distribution. (I gave up on it, since I don't have the time to maintain it.) On Mac OS where there is only one 'package manager' (the app store) I was hoping that the app store had some interface to pkgutil or that there was some wide spread (free) solution for it. I saw that here are multiple tools in the app store that offer to uninstall stuff installed through pkg files, but none of them seemed like 'the' (free) solution. Cu Selur RE: General Mac OS usage questions :) - shijan - 21.09.2020 Ok. To be honest i never see problem with uninstaller: - For basic simple apps it is way simpler just delete app from hard drive folder and just don't care about some additional txt files left in system. It even have advantage - if for some reason you install later same app, all preferences and window size settings will be the same. - For more clean install there is appcleaner and some other similar tools. - More complicated apps like Davinci Resolve or Adobe that designed not exact in normal "app + plist + app support folder" guidelines usually include it's own uninstaller script. Sometimes (mostly in past) that script may be a part of PKG installer, so you may see button UNINSTALL there. Or for example here is Davinci Resolve script placed inside Uninstall.app wrapper: #!/bin/sh RE: General Mac OS usage questions :) - l33tmeatwad - 21.09.2020 The thing about macOS is they tried to design it to be "easy" for most users by having .app files that should theoretically contain all the files needed so if a user deletes that the application is "uninstalled". In reality this is not always the case, even for stuff from major developers like Adobe or Google. |