Dragging down the notifications panel and tapping on the “Settings” option. Click on “Apps” and then select “Applications”. Clicking on the “Apps” option. Scroll down and click on “Google Hangouts”. Two screens mac apps. Click on the “Force Stop” button and select the “Disable” option. Use the Finder to delete an app Locate the app in the Finder. Most apps are in your Applications folder, which you can open by clicking Applications in. Drag the app to the Trash, or select the app and choose File Move to Trash. If you're asked for a user name and password, enter the name.
Wouldn't you love to rid of some or all files on your Mac forever. Be it for storage space or reselling it. Perhaps your Mac is too old to take the next operating system version, or you’ve stored a lot of data on it, and you’re worried that it could be hijacked if stolen.
The last thing you want is to see that your data was leaked by some hacker, leaving you vulnerable and without a clue of what to do next.
The good news is you can permanently delete files from your Mac using several methods that we’ll show you in this guide.
Can My Files Be Retrieved Once I Delete Them
The short answer is yes.
Data recovery technology has made it possible to recover files and restore them, which means someone else can retrieve any files you delete from a hard drive.
Most new Macs come with the solid state drives (flash storage) or Fusion Drives for some iMacs, instead of the old spinning hard disk drives. That is a critical factor when it comes to securely delete files on your Mac because you won’t have to do so if it comes with an SSD.
If you have an older Mac, it probably has a regular HDD, but the newer models with the SSDs allow you to use the standard method of moving files and emptying the trash to erase files, compared to securely erasing the files.
Unlike HDDs, where secure file deletion works, it doesn’t with the SSDs because overwriting a file only creates a new one in a new location but doesn’t overwrite the old file’s contents.
Thankfully though, there are different methods you can use to permanently delete files on your Mac, whether it has the old HDDs or the SSDs.
Note: You can check the storage on your Mac by clicking the Apple logo at the upper left side of the screen, and then going to About This Mac>Storage. Under the disk icon, you'll see whether your Mac has a spinning HDD or an SSD.Move Files to Trash
This is a tried and true method of deleting files on your Mac by dragging it to the trash. You can also use the Move to Trash feature by right-clicking the file and selecting the option. From here, you can go ahead and empty the trash.
Delete Immediately is a feature introduced by Apple with OS X (macOS) 10.11 El Capitan that bypasses the trash when you delete a file. It’s much faster than Move to Trash as you simply highlight your files and then use the Option-Command-Delete shortcut.
Alternatively, you can go to Finder’s File menu and hold down Option key to change the Move to Trash option to Delete Immediately. You’ll be asked to confirm the deletion, just as you would when using Move to Trash option.
Openvpn connect mac app. If you want to skip the empty trash confirmation, go to your keyboard and press the shortcut Command-Option-Shift-Delete. That will bypass the dialog window to confirm the deletion and empty the trash instantly.
How To Permanently Delete Apps From Apple Store
If that is too difficult for you to remember or cumbersome, change Finder preferences setting to kill the confirmation. Go to Menu>Preferences and uncheck the Show warning before emptying the Trash box under Advanced tab.
Secure Empty Trash
This is another simple solution to deleting your files permanently from your Mac. It ensures that the items are deleted forever by writing random data over them multiple times.
The feature came with Mac OS X 10.3 Panther. It overwrites data seven times to increase security.
To use this feature, click Finder menu and select Secure Empty Trash just below Empty Trash.
Use a Third-Party App
If deleting your files by emptying the trash doesn’t help, you can get a third party application to force the trash to empty. There are many such apps available like Permanent Eraser or Clean My Mac, which can help you empty your trash completely and permanently.
Use Mac Terminal
Mac’s Terminal is a command line tool that allows you to complete tedious tasks such as file deletion easily in just a few seconds. The program uses Unix commands to perform several functions easily and quickly without the operating system interfering with its processes. It’s efficient and powerful as it helps you remove files with ease, permanently.
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However, if you haven't used the command line, Terminal can be dangerous too. Before getting into it, familiarize yourself with some basic Terminal commands, because any wrong command you enter can cause damage to your system, and you could easily delete files faster than you’d have time to stop the process.
How To Permanently Remove Apps From Mac
The precision of every character, including capitalization and spaces, is important when using terminal commands.
To get started, take the steps below:
Step 1: Open Finder and click Applications>Utilities>Terminal.
Step 2: In the new window, a command prompt with the $ (dollar sign) will appear. The command line you’ll see is ComputerName:CurrentDirectory ~Username$ and the word Bash at the top, which is the Terminal language in a Mac.
Step 3: Type your command and press the Return key after each command to execute it, or copy and paste the command into the terminal window. Type rm and space, and then drag and drop the file(s) you want to get rid of permanently into the Terminal window. Press Enter to remove it forever.
Note: You can also enter the file’s path into Terminal if you want to remove the file even faster without using drag and drop.
Easily Delete Files for Good
Before you delete the files, make sure you have a backup of your data in case something goes awry. Of course, we would recommend you to get familiar with Terminal for it can be extremely powerful in erasing files while the interface may suffer a glitch or would be slow.
Next up:Want to delete your iCloud storage from your Mac and iPhone? Our next article shows you all the steps you need to take to clear out your storage.
How To Permanently Delete Apps From Apple AccountThe above article may contain affiliate links which help support Guiding Tech. However, it does not affect our editorial integrity. The content remains unbiased and authentic.Read NextHow to Delete iCloud Storage from iPhone and MacAlso See#file deletion #imacDid You Know
Thunderbolt 3 is a data and video transfer protocol and is developed by Intel.
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Removing apps on Mac is easy, just like Windows, where each program has its uninstaller. Uninstalling Apps on Mac is so simple, you need to drop the folder to the trash. But there are few software which is hard to remove. All of them have different reasons to remove apps from their PC. Some want to clean their PC, or the app is not useful. So, it depends on the user why they want to Uninstall Apps on Mac. If you are one of them who wish to Uninstall Apps on Mac, but you are not aware of that then you have come at the right place.
Here in this article, we will show you a few different ways by which you can uninstall apps on your Mac. As Apple Mac is different from Windows, so everyone is not aware of how to delete apps on Mac. Go through the full article and check out a few different ways and Uninstall apps on your Mac.
Contents
How To Uninstall Apps On Mac?
Check out different ways to uninstall apps on Mac. Given below are some different methods which will help you to delete apps on Mac.
Also Check: 15 Best Password Manager for Mac – Most Secured
Method 1: Uninstall Apps using Launchpad
If you don’t know let me tell you that you can delete any app on Mac by using Launchpad. Launchpad shows all the apps which are there on your iOS. Follow the given steps and uninstall the app using launchpad.
Using Launchpad to delete the apps is the easiest way to remove an app which was installed through the App Store.
NOTE: This method works only on the apps which are installed through the Mac App Store. It won’t work for those apps which are installed through third-party developers.
Method 2: Uninstall Apps Using Finder
This one is the easiest method to uninstall any app from Mac. You just need to select and delete the app from Finder. Follow the steps and remove any app from your Mac.
Once you uninstall the app, remember that it will be deleted permanently from your Mac. So, if you have mistakenly deleted any app and you want it back then go to the Trash can before emptying the Trash. Go to the trash can and choose the app which you want back and click on Put Back.
There are few apps which include a separate uninstaller to remove all traces of the app. These apps are from Adobe or Microsoft, as some of the apps will install more apps or place library files.
Method 3: Go To Applications
This method is also very easy.
Method 4:
If you have downloaded an app from somewhere else and not from the Mac App Store, then follow the given steps and uninstall the app. Let us take an example of Audacity. Audacity is downloaded from another website. So You need to go to the developer’s website of Audacity
NOTE: Make sure you download any app from the official website only. Do Not download an app from the download site or any other site. And when you delete the app at that time also use genuine methods only, you don’t need any other app to delete the app from Mac.
Method 5: Delete the program completely
Even after deleting the app, few files are left on the computer. So, you need to uninstall the program completely.
Important tips For Uninstalling Programs on Mac
Check out a few tips before uninstalling any program on Mac.
Final Thoughts
These are few genuine methods by which you can uninstall apps on your Mac. You can try out any of the methods to delete an app from Mac. Make sure you don’t use any fake app to remove the apps as it can harm your PC. If you want to download any app which is not available on the Apple store, then make sure you download it from the developer’s website, which is not fake.
We hope you liked this article and it was helpful for you. Stay tuned to us for more updates. If you have any questions, then let us know by commenting in the comment section below.
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