There are two kinds of applications you find on a Mac; software bundles, such as Safari, are bundled entities that can just be dragged to the trash. Other applications such as MS Office for Mac have many associated components, which will need to be individually identified and then dragged to the trash, after you uninstall Mac programs.

Before you delete an application, you might want to know where your application files are located on your Mac. To locate them, Ctrl-Click (or right click) on the alias of the application that you want to uninstall, and click Show Original. Your application icon will be present in the dock. A window will open showing the original application’s location.

Many applications spread system files all over your hard drive that can be tough to track down. If you do not remove these associated files, MS OSX will end up referencing these applications. In addition, these associated files can take up valuable disk space and clog up your Mac’s performance.

Some application support files can be large and will take up quite a bit of memory space. In the interests of your hard disk, it is best to delete these support files once you uninstall Mac programs. Examples of applications that have large support files are multimedia programs such as GarageBand and DVD Studio Pro. Application support files are located in the Application Support folder within your user’s Library folder, or in the /Library/Application Support/ folder.

When you uninstall Mac program, you can choose to delete the application’s preferences also. However, since the preferences take up very less space, you can choose to retain them for later use if you want to. For your knowledge, know that these application preferences are stored in the Preferences folder within your user’s Library folder ~/Library/Preferences. Some preference files might also be stored in the system-wide Library located at the root of the /Library/Preferences/ system volume.

How to uninstall an application in Mac

Deleting bundled software that come with your Mac, such as Safari, you can just drag and drop the file to Trash bin, or you can follow the process given below. Software that you load from a CD or download from the Internet usually comes with its own uninstaller. Locate the CDs of these software packages and use the uninstall programs from them. If you do not find an application-specific uninstaller, you can use a third-party uninstaller.

This section describes how to uninstall applications from your Mac computer.

1. Close all programs that are presently running on your Mac.

2. Locate your hard drive icon on the desktop (Macintosh HD by default)

3. In the Applications folder, scan the list of available applications and identify the ones you want to uninstall. Select the application you want to delete, and press the C once; in the menu that opens up, select the Move to Trash option.

4. Ensure that you have removed all files associated with the program. To do so:

a. Click Ctrl + F and use the appropriate keywords to search the name of the program.

b. Locate each file in the designated folder, and delete them one by one.

5. Restart your Mac once you uninstall Mac programs and their associated content.

Craig is an expert software development writer. His current area of specialism is special uninstall software with an emphasis on how to uninstall Mac programs.