[X-Newbies] Getting rid of remnants of old uninstalled programs

[Robert MacLeay]

On 6/13/07 4:24 AM, "Joshua Varghese" <joshua at gnubies.com> wrote:

> I have tried out various programs, a lot of them I didn't like and
> deleted. I then found that there were still files on my computer that
> belonged to the programs that I deleted.
> 
> Can someone give me some pointers as to how I can get rid of these
> files.

A complete answer to this can be a bit complicated...

If you are referring to user documents, searching by creator code or unique
file extension will give you a list which you can drag to the trash.  There
are utilities which can help you with this.  File Buddy is my personal
favorite; there are others just as good and maybe free.

If you are referring to support files, you will have to know where the
installers put them. If the programmers followed the rules, you can search
for the programs' -- and publishers' -- names and trash anything associated
with them in the various Libraries.

Example: in ~/Library/Application Support, you can find folders named for
both applications and their publishers. These contain support files you can
usually trash, but be careful; some stuff is shared between applications
from the same publisher.

Throwing out stuff from the various Preferences, Logs, and Caches folders is
almost always safe.

Unhappily, there are a lot of programmers out there who do not follow the
rules. Not all of them are amateurs; some work for the biggest publishers
out there.  You can never be 100% sure where everything got put.

The safest way is the hardest way -- nuke and pave -- but this is usually
overkill.