If everything is OK, click Remove and enter your administrator password.

Junk and clutter! In AppCleaner, all the items can be ticked for removal, but if you find a file that should not be there (I have never seen one), you can clear the tick to keep it. As you can see, there are many others that would have been left behind. Only the first of these, the app itself, would have been removed if the app had simply been dragged to the Trash. Just look at the files it found (see the bigger picture below). Just click the one that you want to remove and it automatically finds and lists all the files associated with that app in a flyout panel at the side. Alternatively, you can click the Applications button in the toolbar in the top right corner and after a few seconds it displays a list of all the apps that are installed on the Mac. It is an essential utility I would not be without. Run AppCleaner and as it says in the window, just drag and drop apps on it. This app has been around for years and it stll works with the latest version of macOS. It then searches the disk for all the files that the app uses, and you can delete the lot, leaving a nice clean drive. Instead of dragging the app from Applications folder to the Trash icon in the Dock, you drag it to the AppCleaner window instead. This is a free utility and it is a great way to clean up the Mac's disk drive when removing an app you no longer want. You can uninstall apps manually by tracking down all the left-over files, but maybe I am just getting old, or maybe a tad lazy, but these days I just leave the job to AppCleaner. Over time left-over files accumulate with repeated installs and partial uninstalls, and problems may arise. Reinstalling an app will use the same files, so removing left-overs is important if you want a clean install of an app, such as to fix a problem. You would be amazed at all the files that are left behind when you drag a Mac app to the Trash in the Dock and you should never remove apps that way if you really want a clean uninstall. Only if there is no uninstaller utility or Uninstall menu option should you drag files to the Trash to remove them. This may be provided as a separate app and the popular VirtualBox application comes with a VirtualBox_Unintall.tool which removes the app if you no longer need it.Īn app may have an Uninstall option on one of its menus or within its preferences. First look to see if an app has an uninstaller. It only works with some apps and you should not do this with all apps. The common advice to drag apps to the Trash to remove them is not always true. Take uninstalling apps for example, you drag them to the Trash, right? Wrong! That leaves junk on the disk.

App cleaner mac os