hello all can any tell me how to clan up my hard drive and get rid of unwanted programs may thanks j

hey, Jamiemac.

what do you what to do, i dont understand you. clean up youre harddrive? like formating on a windows comp?
and if you whant to get rid of some apps, just move them to the thras. and to kiep it clean on youre mac. delete the ''dmg'' from where you have youre safari downloads.

hope this give som help.

gr M4nt4

I used to use iCLean for this purpose..alas, it was deleted off my Mac yesterday and it seems to be gone, otherwise I'd give you a copy of it. It's sadly not freeware and I havent found a torrent for it yet.

To get rid of unwanted programs:

1. Drag them to the trash.
2. Empty the trash.
3. That's it! You'e on a Mac.

Appzapper! Sorry Groon, putting the programs in the trash doesn't delete system prefs & App support folders. Appzapper & or iClean will do this.

and then there is app delete at

http://reggie.ashworth.googlepages.com/appdelete

That's right, but although it's true that a few prefs, etc. might be left behind, they won't have any effect on your system or other apps like they would in Windows. There's no registry to worry about and no "Master File" to get screwed up if a scrap gets left behind.

So, if you want to clean up your computer, as per your original post, drag what you don't want to the trash and empty it. If you're really concerned about getting rid of every last scrap (to save space, because anything left behind won't affect the operation of your computer) then get a third-party program. EDIT: Some apps that need a lot of support files, like Adobe, for example, include an uninstaller. Check the original installer and see if it also has an uninstaller

I still have some prefs left over from programs I trashed years ago, but so what? Some people have to have everything completely accounted for, but I really don't care, just like the possibility of a penny lost behind a sofa cusion doesn't bother me.

In Windows, you just can't drag apps to the trash and delete them. In Mac, you can. That's the difference. If you want to do a little further housecleaning, that's up to you, but if not, the dust will stay under the rug and neither you, nor anyone else, will ever see it.

Of course, some people have to make sure all of therir pencils, pens, notepads, etc. are lined up to the millimeter before they feel comfortable. I'm not one of those, but you might be.

The whole point of this post is, it's quite OK to drag an app to the trash and get on with your life, if you see fit to do it that way. There's no NEED for a third-party app. unless you're really concerned about it.

the way programs work on mac

(application(plists, aka windows registry(core files))) when you move that to the trash, it removes most everything.

the rest is shortcuts, and if it interfaces with anything else.

Let me explain this in a better way:

Applications on Mac are totally different than on Windows, in Mac, you can see almost each app as an icon in the /Applications folder, this icon is actually a folder which contains inside it all the resources that this specific application needs instead of throwing those resources on many other places on the system hard drive, they are all residing inside the application itself, leaving just the preference files and caches saved to other places.

So what you need to do to remove any Application completely from your system:

1) Check if the original application installer has any "uninstall" option instead of installing, this is quite sure with VISE installers and others like Adobe CS3

2) Smaller applications doesn't have any installers, you just drag it from the disk image (dmg) to your /Applications folder and you are ready to go, so when removing it, you just drag it from the /Applications folder to the trash

3) Go to these locations and delete any trail folders or files you find with the same Application or it's Developer name:
~/Library/Preferences (you will find one or more files related to most apps with the format: com.developer.appname.plist)
~/Library/Application Support (you may find here a folder with the application or it's developer name)
/Library/Preferences (very rare non-Apple apps that may put preference files here but you should just check to make sure)

As mentioned above, I use AppZapper,, just drag drop the .app to it and it will fetch the plists/prefs for you and deletes them... unfortunately it's not free, so download the dmg from the site and I will PM the rest to you...

what hmalek said is what i was trying to say with my parentheses

yes, from a developer perspective 8))

I'm surprised the only two directories that actually matter haven't come up yet.

Macintosh HD/library/Startup Items

I think that one explains itself commonly used for programs like Protools, Norton. By default NOTHING should be in there.

and in the case of drives (extentions) like the ones Blackberry has you install.

Macintosh HD/System Folder/Library/Extentions - But never go looking in this folder. As far as the Mac's Extensions are concerned if you don't have the hardware it's just not loaded (unless of course it's a startup item)

Cheers.

Hi,
First of all make a copy with the donate ware CARBON COPY CLONER
Use free Onyx . You find it on the net
Use AppZapper when deleting uneeded progs .
If you own Acrobat IN the menu 3Document3 you hve the solution to slim down PDF files
Bye GhostByte

you could also use appcleaner which is like appzapper but free

There is a program called clean my mac http://thepiratebay.org/torrent/5590860/CleanMyMac_1.9.0 it works a charm run it and it searches through all your temp internet files etc all the programs you dont use all system junk files etc then click remove and removes it for you simples :)

Yes, I've been using this lately too. It keeps track of what it does, and it's cleaned almost 6gb of unused language files, universal binaries, etc from my hard drive. It's a good tool.

Thank you everyone...I just read this yesterday and 'clean up my mac' and it seems to do what it says on the tin. Brilliant.