Does deleting Mac App Store apps in Launchpad delete related files in the Library folders too?

Solution 1:

I tried uninstalling some applications, and files in these folders or the corresponding folders in ~/Library/Containers/ were sometimes deleted and sometimes not:

  • ~/Library/Caches/ (deleted for most applications)
  • ~/Library/Application Support/

Files in these folders weren't deleted for any of the applications I tested with:

  • ~/Library/Preferences/
  • ~/Library/Saved Application State/
  • /var/db/receipts/
  • ~/Library/Logs/DiagnosticReports/
  • ~/Library/Application Support/CrashReporter/
  • ~/Library/Caches/com.plausiblelabs.crashreporter.data/
  • ~/Library/Application Support/Growl/Tickets/

For example Kindle books or the database for notes in JustNotes were not deleted.

You can see what files are accessed by uninstalld with sudo opensnoop -n uninstalld and search for support files with mdfind $(osascript -e 'id of app "AppName"'). If you want to uninstall applications more completely, it's probably safe to just delete the whole sandbox containers in ~/Library/Containers/.