What to clean up after you delete an app on a Mac

When you drag an app to the Trash, the app goes but some of what it set up can stay. The part worth cleaning up is anything that keeps running or tries to start: login items, launch agents and background helpers. The rest, such as preferences and support files, only takes up disk space and is harmless to leave. Check General > Login Items & Extensions (Login Items on macOS 14) in System Settings first, then decide how much of the remainder you care about.

Here is what a deleted app can leave behind, which of it matters, and how to remove the part that does.

What stays behind

An app is more than the icon in your Applications folder. While it was installed, it may have put other files in several places:

• Preferences and settings, stored in your Library, so the app remembers your choices if you install it again.
• Support files and caches, such as saved data, downloaded content and temporary files.
• Startup items, meaning a login item, a launch agent or a daemon: a background helper set to open or run by itself.
• Extensions and plug-ins, for example a Finder extension or a browser add-on, that the app installed alongside itself.
• Licences and keychain entries, which stay so a reinstall can find them.

Dragging the app to the Trash removes the app only. Many apps clean up after themselves if they come with an uninstaller, and some make a point of not leaving files behind. But with a plain drag to the Trash, assume the rest is still there.

The part that matters: startup items

Of everything on that list, startup items are the only leftover that can still be doing something. A support file sitting in a folder does nothing. A launch agent or login item points at a program, and macOS reads it at login.

If the program is gone, there is nothing to run, so the leftover is usually inert. It can still show up in your startup list, and macOS may report an entry for an app that no longer exists. In some cases an item points at a helper that lives outside the app, and that helper can keep running with no app to use it. That is the case worth catching.

How to check:

1. Open Login Items & Extensions in System Settings.
2. Look through “Open at Login” and “Allow in the Background” for names of apps you have deleted. A name you do not recognise may belong to a helper from one of them.
3. Remove or switch off what is left. The minus button removes a login item, and each background item has a switch.

That screen is not the whole picture. Launch agents and daemons are often listed under the maker’s company name rather than the app’s, and switching one off leaves its file in the LaunchAgents or LaunchDaemons folder. How to find out what starts when your Mac starts shows where they are, and how to remove login items left behind by deleted apps goes through the removal in more detail.

The part that does not matter much: files

Preferences, support files and caches sit in your Library and use some disk space. For most apps it is a modest amount. Leaving them does no harm, and it has an upside: if you reinstall the app, your settings are still there.

If you want the space back, or you are sure you will never reinstall, you can look in the Library folder for a folder named after the app or its maker. To reach it in Finder, choose Go in the menu bar, hold the Option key and pick Library. Look in Application Support, Preferences and Caches. Delete only what you recognise as belonging to that app, move it to the Trash rather than deleting it permanently, and use the app’s name or the maker’s as your guide. If you are not sure that a folder belongs to the app, leave it alone.

Before you spend time on this, check how much space is at stake. System Settings, General, then Storage shows where your disk space goes. If the disk is not short of room, the leftover files are not worth the effort or the risk of removing something you need.

Better still, use the app’s own uninstaller if there is one. Some apps include it in the download, or in a menu, and it removes more than a drag to the Trash does. If you have not yet deleted the app, check for that first.

Extensions and other pieces

Most extensions, such as a Finder extension or a share menu item, live inside the app, so they go when the app does. On recent versions of macOS, Login Items & Extensions also lists extensions, and you can switch them off there. If one still shows for an app you have deleted, switch it off.

Browser add-ons live inside the browser, and deleting the app that installed them does not always remove them. Open the browser’s extensions page and look.

What Foreman does and does not do here

Foreman does one part of this job and says so. Its Startup Apps page lists everything that opens at login or runs in the background, grouped by the app it belongs to. When an item’s app has been deleted, its status reads “Program missing”, which is a leftover. You can remove those one at a time with Remove, or all together with Clean Up Leftovers. The files go to the Trash rather than being deleted outright. The system-wide ones need an administrator password, and Clean Up Leftovers asks for it once for all of them.

That is the whole of it. Foreman does not uninstall apps, and it does not clear preferences, caches, support files or anything else a deleted app left behind. It does not analyse disk space either. For those, the Library folder and System Settings, General, then Storage are the tools, as described above.

So the division of labour is simple: Foreman covers the startup leftovers, the part that can keep running, and the rest is yours to decide on. Foreman is $12 once, works on up to 3 Macs and is free for 24 hours. System Settings can switch most of these items off too; removing their files means visiting the folders yourself.

A short routine for the next time you delete an app

1. Quit the app, then drag it to the Trash, or use its uninstaller if it has one.
2. Open Login Items & Extensions and look for anything left from it.
3. Look for leftovers in the older startup folders if you know the app installed a helper. If you see an entry marked “Program missing” in Foreman’s Startup Apps page, remove it.
4. Leave preferences and support files unless you need the disk space.
5. Empty the Trash.

A tidy startup list is the lasting benefit. A leftover folder of preferences does nothing for or against you, while a stray background item is the kind of leftover that can keep trying to run. If you want to know why a deleted app still appears in the list, why a deleted app still shows up in login items explains it.