How to Completely Uninstall Apps on Mac (Without Leaving Junk)

To completely uninstall an app on a Mac, quit it, move it from the Applications folder to the Trash, then remove the files it left in your user Library folder: its support files, caches, preferences, logs and containers. Dragging the app to the Trash only removes the app itself. The leftovers are often small, but for some apps they run to several gigabytes. The steps below work in Finder on macOS 13 and later.

1. Remove the app itself

1. Quit the app. If it has a menu bar icon, quit that as well.
2. Check whether the app has its own uninstaller, either inside its folder in Applications or on the maker's website. If it does, use it, because it knows about any system components the app installed.
3. Otherwise open the Applications folder and drag the app to the Trash.

Apps that are part of macOS, such as Safari and Mail, cannot be removed this way and should be left alone.

2. Open your Library folder

The Library folder in your home folder is hidden by default.

1. Click the desktop so that Finder is the active app.
2. Open the Go menu and hold the Option key. Library appears in the menu. Click it.

You can also choose Go, then Go to Folder, and enter ~/Library.

3. Find the leftover files

Look in each of these folders for items named after the app or its maker:

• ~/Library/Application Support
• ~/Library/Caches
• ~/Library/Preferences (files ending in .plist)
• ~/Library/Logs
• ~/Library/Containers
• ~/Library/Group Containers
• ~/Library/Saved Application State
• ~/Library/LaunchAgents

Preference files and containers are usually named in reverse web address style, for example com.maker.appname, so look for the maker's name as well as the app's name.

4. Delete with care

1. Move only the items that clearly belong to the app you removed to the Trash.
2. If two apps come from the same maker, check that a shared folder is not still used by the one you are keeping.
3. Leave anything you are unsure about. A stray preference file takes almost no space.
4. Restart the Mac and confirm your other apps work.
5. Choose Finder, then Empty Trash. The space is freed at this point.

Remember that Application Support may hold your own data for that app, such as projects, saves or settings. If you might reinstall the app later, copy that folder somewhere safe first.

5. Check login items

Some apps install a helper that starts at login. Open System Settings, then General, then Login Items, and switch off or remove any entry that belongs to the app you uninstalled.

What MacPrune does about it

The Apps page in MacPrune v2.0 does this search for you. It uninstalls an app together with its related files, and it can also find leftovers of apps you removed earlier by dragging them to the Trash. You see what will be removed before anything happens. Everything you choose is moved to the Trash after a confirmation, so you can look it over there, and the space is freed when the Trash is emptied.

In the free version you can remove leftovers of apps that are already gone, and uninstall up to 2 apps per batch. Pro removes that limit.

Next steps

If you remove apps often, download MacPrune and try the Apps page. For other places space hides, see how to clear System Data on a Mac and how to free up Mac storage.