AppZapper: Uninstalls All Parts of Your Mac OS X Software
Gee, I hate to pay money for an uninstaller, and I really don’t need one, given the way most Mac apps are installed. But still… I can’t resist trying it out.
Update 4/3/06: I haven’t had time to try this out yet, but I noticed in Macworld today that the software has a new component called QuickZap that apparently makes it even easier to delete peripheral pieces of an app that live in the Library (widgets, pref panes, etc.)
Update 4/17/06: OK, I just couldn’t resist the temptation any longer… Although there are many apps that are higher up in the “review queue” than AppZapper, I just love this one’s logo and website design. (Aren’t those good reasons?) Also, the company released a new version, so I was downloading it anyway.
All I can say to you is… Go get this software! After only about 5 minutes of use, I could tell it was going to save me hours of time (assuming I ever really get around to doing the cleanup of my preferences and application support folders that I know they need). Having used up my 5 free Zaps, I went ahead and purchased the damn thing. Speaking of purchasing it, you might be able to save a few dollars by googling for “AppZapper coupon” before plunking down the “retail price” of $12.95…
So what got me so excited about AppZapper besides the website and logo? OK, in a nutshell, here’s what AppZapper lets you do that you can’t reall do any other way:
- In the blink of an eye, find all the files that were installed by a given application, as well as the .dmg file that it came in.
- Each file or folder is neatly displayed in the Zapper window, with checkboxes indicating which ones you want to zap. You can uncheck items you don’t want zapped (for example, I actually want to keep the old executable files, just not the preference and application support files), and there are shortcut methods for selecting and deselecting different categories of these files.
- All you do is drag applications and folders of apps to the Zapper window, and the magic begins. I haven’t tested the full limits of this (the folder of old apps I want to zap contains… let’s see… about 150 applications), but I’ve put up to 10 apps in front of AppZapper at a time, and it didn’t flinch.
- AppZapper keeps a detailed log of all the files it has zapped, and you can go through the Trash later if you find you threw something out that you shouldn’t have.
- True to my earlier comment about an AppZapper upgrade, the Zap window has a little tool that lets you peruse your Widgets, Preference Panes, and Plugins folders for apps to zap. Only thing missing there are things like Input Managers and Services, but I’m sure that’ll come eventually.
- If you’re really nervous about zapping certain sacred apps, you can drag them to a special “protected” pane, and AppZapper won’t harm them. You can also make sure AppZapper doesn’t mess with any currently running applications.
Before AppZapper, I would brave a stroll into my /Library/Preferences folder now and then, individually selecting plist files to destroy. Same thing with the /Library/Application Support folder. But I never ventured far, because I’d have to try to verify what apps I was affecting, and that took time. Plus, the stroll itself was very slow. Even after spending a half hour or hour on this, I might have cleaned out only a dozen or so files and had no way of knowing if there were any other associated files lurking about.
The way I work, I keep all my old, unused apps and demo apps in a special folder on another partition. It’s easy to drag the apps themselves out of the startup volume, but doing so–as everyone who’s thought about this much knows–doesn’t drag any of the flotsam and jetsam with it. AppZapper is perfect for finding all that old garbage and provides just the right amount of protection to make sure you don’t destroy something important in the process.
Maybe someday Apple will offer something like AppZapper with the OS, but until then, do yourself a favor: Reduce the size of your Application Support and Preferences folders. I can’t help but think smaller folders will let the apps you actually use launch a little faster. OK, not by much maybe, but scanning through a folder with 100 plist files has got to be faster than scanning through one with 500 files.