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jeroenhdtoday at 8:26 AM1 replyview on HN

> Same for uninstalling. Move to Trash and poof, unistalled.

That removes most of the program files, but there is no chance for the program to run any cleanup process in the mean time. Library Support, .cache, and all other kinds of remnants remain and have no way of getting cleaned up without manual user intervention. It's like hunting down broken uninstaller files in Windows 98 all over again.

The places that need cleaning up after uninstalling a program:

    ~/Library/Application Support/
    ~/Library/Preferences/
    ~/Library/Caches/
    ~/Library/LaunchAgents/
Or possibly:

    /Library/Application Support/
    /Library/LaunchDaemons/
    /Library/LaunchAgents/
And possibly others that use UNIX-style .config/.cache rather than the macOS defaults.

I do like the "folder as an executable" approach macOS has, but the way the ecosystem goes about program management isn't great. Storing caches and data inside of the app directory for applications installed to a user folder (not the global Applications folder, which would require administrative permissions) would go a long way. Entries in all the other folders could just be symlinks that don't take up any space after you trash a program.

As for installers, macOS comes with its own native install wizard format, akin to Windows' MSI installers. This seems to be the default way of installing programs that need things like drivers to function correctly.


Replies

kvujtoday at 9:32 AM

Isn't it the same for Windows? There have been countless programs throughout the years that I've uninstalled and saw remnant folders in %appdata%, Documents folder, Program Files folder with only 2 remaining files inside, sometimes even hidden folders by default.

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