Clean out the old apps completely - take 2

2023.06.22 • 5 min read

Updated script that can do it all.

I decided the multi-step approach in the last post (Clean out the old apps completely) was cool in a sense that I see and control everything that gets found and processed. But sometimes, one tool is preferable.

So I wrote a Python script that does everything. A native Mac app? Of course. A wrapped container of an iPhone/iPad app? No sweat.

This script will display all the application specific files and folders and ask if you want to delete them. On Mac OS, it will send them to the user trash location. To completely release the disk space, empty your trash.

The script will only delete anything if you explicitly allow it it. Hitting anything else but a y when prompted will continue with no changes made.

Installation

Download the Python script file. Place it anywhere in the system you like. Run it from anywhere in the system you like.

Usage

Command to use the script is included in the script file header. Or you can just run the script with no arguments and it will remind you how to use it.

$ python3 app-cleaner.py /Applications/<app-name>.app

Here is an example of an iOS app being deleted completely:

$ python3 app-cleaner.py /Applications/Damus.app 
 - 'Damus' is not running. Proceeding
 - (This is not a regular Mac app, will search Containers.)
 - Found Damus locations:
/Applications/Damus.app
/var/folders/qp/fvwj41093d7c1ht9k_kmml100000gn/C/com.jb55.damus2
/var/folders/qp/fvwj41093d7c1ht9k_kmml100000gn/C/com.jb55.damus2
/private/var/folders/qp/fvwj41093d7c1ht9k_kmml100000gn/C/com.jb55.damus2
 - Delete the above [y/n]? y
Moving to trash: /Applications/Damus.app
Moving to trash: /var/folders/qp/fvwj41093d7c1ht9k_kmml100000gn/C/com.jb55.damus2
Moving to trash: /var/folders/qp/fvwj41093d7c1ht9k_kmml100000gn/C/com.jb55.damus2
Moving to trash: /private/var/folders/qp/fvwj41093d7c1ht9k_kmml100000gn/C/com.jb55.damus2

 - There may be Damus containers. Looking
/Users/<your-user>/Library/Containers/911AC124-2940-47B3-830B-A6C70DBE16A8/Data/Library/Saved Application State/com.jb55.damus2~iosmac.savedState
/Users/<your-user>/Library/Containers/911AC124-2940-47B3-830B-A6C70DBE16A8/Data/Library/Preferences/com.jb55.damus2.plist
/Users/<your-user>/Library/Containers/911AC124-2940-47B3-830B-A6C70DBE16A8/Data/Library/Application Scripts/com.jb55.damus2
 - Found container(s):
/Users/<your-user>/Library/Containers/911AC124-2940-47B3-830B-A6C70DBE16A8
 - Delete the above [y/n]? y
Moving to trash: /Users/<your-user>/Library/Containers/911AC124-2940-47B3-830B-A6C70DBE16A8

And that is it. Then I emptied the trash.

Confirmed success

To check if anything at all remains, I did the following:

Check 1: re-run the same script to look again - nothing is found, as expected. The script exited.

$ python3 app-cleaner.py /Applications/Damus.app
 - 'Damus' is not running. Proceeding
 - /Applications/Damus.app not found. Exiting

Check 2: run a global search for any file containing the application name - absolutely nothing is found. It takes some time to complete as it goes everywhere. But then I just got back the command prompt, no additional results. Note: if I still had the app in my Trash, it would be found by this global search script.

$ find-all.sh damus

Searching everywhere for "*damus*" (case-insensitive) ...

$

The find-all.sh comes from a script I shared previously when I was interested in simplifying finding files and text within files (Search blog post). The find scripts in all their versions is what I use almost daily and don’t have to remember to type out entire commands and their arguments. Super helpful.

Resources:

Updated version 2: Python script
Related blog post: Clean out the old apps completely
The original Search blog post

Other

Room for improvement: In the future, I would love to dig into and understand why there are two identical results for the content in the user cache folder. If you notice the two lines of the same, above in the example? That seems to be a duplicate, but why?

/var/folders/qp/fvwj41093d7c1ht9k_kmml100000gn/C/com.jb55.damus2
/var/folders/qp/fvwj41093d7c1ht9k_kmml100000gn/C/com.jb55.damus2

« Clean out the old apps completely - take 1 No need for the Emoji plugin? »