In Mac OS X, what steps should I use to remove an application?
You can remove many applications from Mac OS X simply by
throwing the application's icon in the Trash. However,
sometimes you must do more than this to completely remove the
application from your system. To completely remove an application, try
the following:
Use the installer program
If the application you are trying to remove has an installer program, see if that installer also has an uninstall or remove function. In some cases, this option won't be immediately apparent, but many of the newer installers do have this capability.
Remove the application manually
Frequently, applications native to Mac OS X are installed as
self-contained packages. To throw them away, all you need to do is
drag the application icon into the Trash. If the application
is installed inside a folder, throw away the entire folder. Also,
look for pieces of the application in the subfolders of the
Library folders, which are in your home directory, as
well as in the top level of your startup disk. However, you should be
careful with what you discard from here, as it is possible to disable
your system if you remove the wrong files.
To search for application files, while in the Finder, from
the File menu, select Find.... In the window
that opens, you can specify conditions for the search, including the
search location, words or letters that the name should include, and
whether or not to include invisible files. For more information on
searching for invisible files, see In Mac OS X, how do I view invisible files?
