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Making macOS Apps Uninstallable

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Re: Making macOS Apps Uninstallable

#71

Post by justinclift »

kitsunesoba wrote: post #5
alin23 wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I never had macOS remove those files automatically when dragging the app to the trash. I still have files left from 4 MacBooks ago (for apps I haven’t installed in a long time) because I’m always migrating the home folder. I guess they’re just expected to be left behind in case you change your mind and want to reinstall the app later. That way you’ll still continue where you left with the same settings. They’re inert…

> I guess they’re just expected to be left behind in case you change your mind and want to reinstall the app later. That way you’ll still continue where you left with the same settings. And if apps are well behaved, only writing tiny config files in ~/Library/Preferences/ and the like, it’s not really a problem. The amount of space taken up in that situation was tiny even when OS X 10.0 was brand new and 10GB was a c…

Autodesk Fusion 360 does this too. It's "installer" downloads the multi-GB package for it + installs the whole thing into a local user folder which the OS has no knowledge of.

Apparently they do this so they can control when it's updated, without having to go through any OS controls.

Needless to say, when people "delete" it they often are just deleting a stub rather than the actual multi-GB file set. :(

Re: Making macOS Apps Uninstallable

#72

Post by Aloha »

Dalewyn wrote: post #41
pfp wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No. The user data, preferences etc under ~/Library/ belong to you - whether it's 3 kB of preference toggles or 3 decades of email. It would be "unbelievable" if a multibillion company decided to be helpful and erase your data just because you deleted the binary that created them (actually, it wouldn't, but let's not digress into how those companies are stripping away our agency by mobile-ossifying everything). The wh…

>opaque windoze registries etc Thanks for demonstrating your lack of credibility. Uninstallers by and large only do the reverse of what an installer did by going through the install log and undoing what it did. This means any additional files made after the the installation that weren't properly appended to the log, any additional information added to the Registry that weren't properly appended to the log, and any us…

Most windows installers do not bother to clean up /Program Data or ~/AppData

Nor do most linux programs remove dot files when they go away.

Re: Making macOS Apps Uninstallable

#73

Post by LoganDark »

alin23 wrote: post #3
mdmglr wrote: post #2

I recently had to uninstall some apps and it’s common for apps to litter files throughout /Library and ~/Library. The UX from early MacOS days is you can drag/drop the App to the Trash Can to uninstall it. Does MacOS actually clean up the misc. files applications leave at some point?

I never had macOS remove those files automatically when dragging the app to the trash. I still have files left from 4 MacBooks ago (for apps I haven’t installed in a long time) because I’m always migrating the home folder. I guess they’re just expected to be left behind in case you change your mind and want to reinstall the app later. That way you’ll still continue where you left with the same settings. They’re inert…

> I never had macOS remove those files automatically when dragging the app to the trash.

Because it only happens when you use the specific "x" button in Launchpad

Re: Making macOS Apps Uninstallable

#74

Post by pilif »

Aloha wrote: post #72
Dalewyn wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>opaque windoze registries etc Thanks for demonstrating your lack of credibility. Uninstallers by and large only do the reverse of what an installer did by going through the install log and undoing what it did. This means any additional files made after the the installation that weren't properly appended to the log, any additional information added to the Registry that weren't properly appended to the log, and any us…

Most windows installers do not bother to clean up /Program Data or ~/AppData Nor do most linux programs remove dot files when they go away.

Especially ~/AppData (and ~/Library) is problematic because the person uninstalling the app might not be the person who was previously using the app.

Reaching into another account‘s home directory to remove stuff feels very intrusive.

Which would mean that any uninstall trying to also clean out library data is going to be incomplete.

I think the consistent behavior of always keeping it is a win

Re: Making macOS Apps Uninstallable

#75

Post by tzhenghao »

mdmglr wrote: post #2

I recently had to uninstall some apps and it’s common for apps to litter files throughout /Library and ~/Library. The UX from early MacOS days is you can drag/drop the App to the Trash Can to uninstall it. Does MacOS actually clean up the misc. files applications leave at some point?

What bothers me even more is the fact that nowadays newly installed apps even need to "ask user for permission to access the {Documents, Downloads, Desktop, ...} folders". This is especially true when using a new terminal emulator like iTerm or Alacritty

Re: Making macOS Apps Uninstallable

#77

Post by jasonhansel »

goranmoomin wrote: post #43
mattigames wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's also Apple's fault isn't it? App data should fall into an predictable folder regardless of the location from where is ran, if for whatever reason the app needs to use a different folder it should be something developers have to go to multiple hurdles to implement (e.g. specify in a manifest what files and where will them be stored, and explicitly specify it they should be automatically deleted or not after mov…

> App data should fall into an predictable folder regardless of the location from where is ran In fact, App Store apps are guaranteed to do that (by being in a closed sandbox); that's why Apple has an uninstallation procedure only for App Store apps. > specify in a manifest what files and where will them be stored, and explicitly specify it they should be automatically deleted or not after moving the app to the trash…

"Would you like to allow your toaster to make toast?"

"Please grant your refrigerator permission to store milk."

Re: Making macOS Apps Uninstallable

#78

Post by jdminhbg »

AbusiveHNAdmin wrote: post #45
jdminhbg wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> That's also Apple's fault isn't it? Sure, but if they locked things down the way you’re proposing, people would absolutely lose their minds about the iOSification of macOS.

supporting uninstallation ≠ locking down

Supporting uninstallation by restricting applications to a sandbox that can be cleaned up == locking down

Re: Making macOS Apps Uninstallable

#79

Post by throwaway290 »

nerdponx wrote: post #69
pfp wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No. The user data, preferences etc under ~/Library/ belong to you - whether it's 3 kB of preference toggles or 3 decades of email. It would be "unbelievable" if a multibillion company decided to be helpful and erase your data just because you deleted the binary that created them (actually, it wouldn't, but let's not digress into how those companies are stripping away our agency by mobile-ossifying everything). The wh…

Consider that sometimes people do actually want to clean up all artifacts of an installation, and don't want to go digging around in a bunch of machine-generated directories trying to guess what to delete. I think I agree that the default behavior should be to leave all that data on the user's system. But I also think that apps should have some kind of associated file manifest, which you can use to automatically clea…

> sometimes people do actually want to clean up

There are two scenarios I want the cleanup to happen: 1) app is buggy and I'm trying to fix it by reinstalling from scratch, 2) I need to free disk space. Both are pretty rare, and in the second case I am already using a specialized utility like DaisyDisk to see where my space has gone.

> transient data files

/tmp? That gets actually auto cleaned up!

> settings

Maybe. Do we want macOS to introduce the concept of uninstall to shave a few of those kilobytes? Hoping programmers do not screw up with rm -rf /? I already hate it when I have to use an installer so that's a no from me.

Re: Making macOS Apps Uninstallable

#80

Post by rswail »

fastball wrote: post #70
PaulDavisThe1st wrote: post #52

Uninstallable is nice, but how about something on making apps not in the app store trivially installable without developers paying Apple a ransom fee? Oh that's right, we can't control that, just have to pay the tax.

Download > Drag into /Applications isn't easy enough for you?

If the app isn't signed (that's the so-called "developer tax", because it costs you USD100/year), then its:

1. Drag into Applications, try to open it, get warning.

2. Open System Preferences > Security & Privacy > General, click on lock, enter admin password, allow the app to be opened.

So it's not as easy as it used to be.

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