How to Completely Uninstall Apps on Mac
Uninstalling apps on a Mac or MacBook by dragging them to the Trash removes the app. It doesn't remove the seven other things the app installed. Here is where they're, and when it matters.
On macOS an application is a bundle, a single .app folder that Finder shows as one file. Deleting it removes the executable and its resources. What it doesn't touch is everything the app wrote outside that bundle while you were using it.
For a sandboxed App Store app, that's usually tidy and contained. For anything installed from the web, it is scattered across your Library.
Where the leftovers live
Seven locations account for nearly all of it. Every path below is inside your home folder unless stated otherwise.
~/Library/Application Support/[App Name], the big one. Databases, downloaded assets, plugin folders. Frequently hundreds of megabytes, sometimes many gigabytes.~/Library/Caches/[bundle id], cached data. Safe to remove at any time, app or no app.~/Library/Preferences/[bundle id].plist, your settings. Tiny, but this is the file that makes a reinstalled app remember its old configuration.~/Library/Containers/[bundle id], the sandbox container for App Store apps. Holds that app's own private Library.~/Library/Group Containers/[team id], shared between apps from the same developer. Careful here, since more than one app may use it.~/Library/LaunchAgents, the background helper that keeps running after the app is gone. Covered in launch agents explained.~/Library/Logs/[App Name], diagnostic output. Harmless, occasionally large.
There are also system-level equivalents in /Library/ without the tilde, which need an administrator password and are where installers put things that apply to every user.
Doing it by hand
Find the bundle identifier first, because most folders are named after it rather than the app:
osascript -e 'id of app "AppName"'That returns something like com.vendor.appname. Then search each Library folder for both the app name and that identifier. Open the Library folder from Finder with Go, Go to Folder, then paste ~/Library.
What about AppCleaner and similar free tools?
AppCleaner is a long-standing free utility that does the core job well: drop an app on it and it finds the associated files and offers to remove them together. If all you need is occasional clean removal, it is a reasonable answer and it costs nothing.
Where free tools of this kind tend to stop is the case that matters most on an older machine, which is finding leftovers from apps that are already gone. Those tools work from the app bundle, so with no bundle to inspect there's nothing to match against. That gap is the main practical reason to reach for something with a full-disk scan behind it.
Apps that need their own uninstaller
Some software installs kernel extensions, system extensions or privileged helper tools, and dragging the app to the Trash leaves those running. Antivirus products, VPN clients, virtualisation software, backup agents and printer or scanner drivers all fall into this category.
For these, use the vendor's own uninstaller. Adobe, Microsoft, most VPN providers and every antivirus vendor ship one. Removing the app bundle and leaving a system extension behind is how people end up with a network filter they can't switch off.
When leftovers matter, and when they don't
Worth being honest about this, because the category tends to imply every stray file is a problem.
It matters when:
- The Application Support folder is large. Chat apps, design tools and anything that caches media can leave several gigabytes.
- A launch agent survives and keeps trying to run a binary that no longer exists.
- A system or kernel extension is still loaded.
- You are reinstalling to fix a problem, and stale preferences would carry the problem across.
It doesn't matter when:
- All that remains is a preference file measured in kilobytes. It costs nothing and does nothing.
- You plan to reinstall the app soon, in which case leaving the settings is a feature.
A few hundred stray plist files don't slow a Mac down. Whoever tells you otherwise is describing a problem that doesn't exist on this operating system. What they do is take up space, which matters only when you're short of it.
Find every leftover from every app you've removed
CleanMachine's Uninstaller checks all seven locations plus the system-level ones, matches on bundle identifier rather than name so it doesn't catch the wrong files, and shows the size of each leftover before removing anything. Everything goes to a recoverable Trash. Free to scan.
↓ Download Free & ScanFinding leftovers from apps you deleted years ago
This is the harder case, because you no longer have the bundle to read an identifier from. Sort ~/Library/Application Support by size in Finder and look for folders whose names you no longer recognise. Cross-check anything you're unsure of by searching the name before deleting it, and move rather than delete.
On a Mac that has been through a few years of software, this folder is regularly the single largest recoverable thing in your home directory, and it is invisible from the Storage pane in System Settings because macOS files all of it under System Data.