how to 'uninstall' games?

Barose

Barose

Registered
Hallo. PCs always present a nice 'uninstall' command when it comes to removing software, but Mac usually doesn't. So my question is: how do i completely remove a game from my computer? It seems that throwing the game folder away isn't enough, some stuff still remains. Well?
 
Depends on the game. Most really just take putting it in the bin and emptying that. Preferences might still be in "~/Library/Preferences" and some games might install stuff in "~/Library/Application Support" or "/Library/Application Support", but other than that... No uninstaller needed.
 
Usually all you need to do is drag the app to the trash and empty it, especially if the application was just installed by copying the app into the Applications folder. If the app did use an installer, they'll either include an uninstaller or you can just delete the app as I mentioned earlier. Sometimes, the installer itself has the option to uninstall so you might want to run that before you go and drag it to the trash.

Hope this helped.
 
If the game is a Feral title you only need to delete two things.

1.) The game folder
2.) Your preferences

Full instructions on where the preferences are stored is included in the Read Me with the games.

Basically all preferences are stored in the following format :-

~/Library/Preferences/original_developer/game_name/

for example Black and White is

~/Library/Preferences/Lionhead/Black & White/

Most games on the Mac have a similar scheme although some dump save games in different places like application support or your documents folder.


Cheers,

Edwin
 
I use Spotlight to find all the folders I needed to uninstall. There was this one game that I had that had files in weird places, but spotlight found everything.
 
Also, in a vain attempt to get a point across without starting a flame thread, windows does not have a nice uninstaller.. it has a shoddy one that leaves files everywhere, and leave the registry in a state. it was one of my reasons for switching.
 
Lt Major Burns said:
Also, in a vain attempt to get a point across without starting a flame thread, windows does not have a nice uninstaller.. it has a shoddy one that leaves files everywhere, and leave the registry in a state. it was one of my reasons for switching.
Click to expand...

I do have to agree with this comment. It's few and far between that I've seen uninstallers for Windows actually remove everything from a Windows computer. At least when something remains in OS X, it's always in the Preferences folder. :)
 
On one application that I used I installed it from a CD and didn't actually put the installer file on my HD, but when I put the CD back in and ran the installer when I was reinstalling the software I noticed that there was a list menu, one option of which was 'uninstall'.

So if you installed it from a CD, and there is no installer file that you can find try looking on the CD.
 
In my experience, the "uninstall" function that sometimes is included with software downloads often still leaves some files scattered about one's hard disk, and OS X's finder frequently just won't find all the files one is looking for.
I discovered this handy little app that actually finds ALL files;it's called Easy Find: http://macupdate.com/info.php/id/11076.
It's really quite good, and it's free.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top