Uninstall apps on your Mac completely, leftovers included

Why dragging an app to the Trash leaves files behind

A Mac app is a single .app bundle, but it doesn't keep everything inside it. The first time it runs, it starts writing to folders of its own elsewhere: settings in ~/Library/Preferences, data in ~/Library/Application Support, caches in ~/Library/Caches, and, for sandboxed apps, a whole container in ~/Library/Containers. Some apps also install launch agents that start a helper at every login, privileged helpers under /Library, or installer receipts.

macOS has no uninstall step that cleans these up. Move the app to the Trash and all of it stays where it is: taking up space, and in the case of launch agents, sometimes still trying to run something that no longer exists.

What the Uninstaller finds

Pick an app in Uninstaller and Tidy My Mac lists its Leftover files, grouped by kind, each with its size and a button to show it in Finder:

Everything starts checked. Untick anything you want to keep, such as an app's settings in case you reinstall it later. The header shows the app's size, the leftovers' size, and what Will be freed.

How leftovers are matched

Because what it finds is deleted, the Uninstaller matches narrowly. It reads the app's bundle ID, and the IDs of the extensions, login items and helpers shipped inside it, and looks for files named exactly after them. Folders named after the app itself are only matched where apps really use their name, like Application Support, and never a name shared across a vendor's apps, such as a "Google" or "Microsoft" folder. A launch agent with an unrelated name still counts when the program it runs lives inside the app, which is how bundled updaters are caught. And a file that another installed app's ID describes more precisely is left to that app.

Uninstalling, step by step

When you press Uninstall and confirm, Tidy My Mac:

1. asks the app and its helpers to quit, and waits. It never force-quits, so an app asking you to save a document can't lose your work;
2. stops the app's launch agents and daemons, so nothing keeps running until the next restart;
3. removes the app from Launch Services, so Open With doesn't keep offering it;
4. removes the app and the checked items, asking once for an administrator password if any of them are outside your home folder or owned by the system, as App Store apps are;
5. checks the disk afterwards and reports anything still there, rather than counting it as removed.

If you cancel the password prompt, nothing is removed, so you are never left with half an app.

Leftovers of apps you already deleted

Most Macs already have leftovers from apps dragged to the Trash years ago. Leftovers of removed apps, at the top of the app list, finds them: preferences, caches and containers in your Library that are named after an app, when no installed or running app claims them and macOS doesn't know of an app with that ID anywhere on your Mac. It also finds launch agents whose program no longer exists.

Each item says why it is on the list and when it last changed. Items that need a closer look are marked Check first and never selected for you: anything changed in the last 30 days, anything from a vendor that still has an app installed, and launch agents whose program was on another disk. Only your home folder is searched, and what you remove goes to the Trash, so you can put it back from the Trash or the cleanup history until you empty it.

What it won't touch

Apps that are part of macOS, like Safari, are marked and can't be uninstalled, and Tidy My Mac doesn't uninstall itself. Every path is checked before anything happens: if one isn't an app in an Applications folder or a place where app leftovers live, the whole uninstall is refused. Everything runs on your Mac; the list of your apps is never uploaded (see the Privacy Policy).

Full Disk Access

macOS only lets an app with Full Disk Access remove another app's containers. Without it, the Uninstaller says so before it starts, and lets you either grant access or Uncheck Containers and leave them behind. It won't begin an uninstall it can't finish, because once the app is gone its leftovers can no longer be matched to it.