How to Remove Apps from your Mac by Using Finder, Trash, Launchpad and Manually?

Remove Apps from macOS

It’s an easy to remove any of the apps from your Mac by doing a few clicks. The following article will show you the various methods to uninstall Mac applications.

I recommend that if you are not using any of the apps on your macOS, it is better to uninstall them because those apps are occupying valuable hard disk space.

Remove Apps using Finder and Trash

Uninstall the App from your Launchpad

Manually Delete Mac Applications

Remove Apps using Finder and Trash

What is Finder?

Finder is a very useful utility that shows files, folders and apps installed on your Mac. Finder gives you access or allows you to organize your files, folders and applications.

What is Trash or Bin?

Trash, also known as Bin, is similar to the Recycle bin in Windows. On Mac, whenever you delete any file, folder or application, it will be moved to the Trash folder (can be seen in your dock).

Step 1. Launch Finder from the Dock

Step 2. Select Applications from the left side option and as a result it will show all the installed apps on your Mac

applications folder in macbook

Step 3. After that, select the app that you want to remove from your mac. Right-click and choose Move to Bin

remove apps using finder and trash

Step 4. Your above action will delete the app from the Finder and send it to Trash or Bin

Note: Alternatively, you can simply drag-and-drop the selected app from your Finder to Bin/Trash

Step 5. Open the Bin or Trash folder and delete the app from the Trash as well or you can use the Empty Trash option (if you don’t have anything important that you wish to restore in the future).

It’s done now. The selected app should be removed from your Mac.

Uninstall the App from your Launchpad

There are a few cases seen wherein a user uninstalls apps from the Applications folder but still can be seen on Launchpad which irritates a lot.

Don’t worry, this will be a very easy fix.

Open Launchpad and you can do it by doing one of the following:

  • Press Option key from your keyboard and Launchpad icons start moving or jumping with and X on it. Click X and remove it
  • Go to the app on the Launchpad that you want to remove, then hold a click on the mouse/touchpad and the icons will start wiggling. Again, click X and remove it.
Manually Delete Mac Applications  

Also, if the above solution did not work for you, we can go ahead and manually delete any of the Mac applications.

There might be a chance that the application leftovers still exist on your Mac. The below process will help you to remove all-associated files as well

Note: you can directly follow the process below to uninstall the Mac app or in case the above steps won’t work to you.

  1. Open Finder and select the Application folder (as in Step 2 above)
  2. At the top-right, there is a Search option. Type the application name that you want to remove manually and you will see a few files as a result
    Below the Search option, there is a + symbol. Click on it to get more options to filter

remove apps from mac manually

  1. Make a filter with System files > are included.
    manually delete mac applications
  2. Finally, you will have all the application associated files in front of you. Select all and delete.

For instance, in my case there is a file named MacBook Air (which is just a system information file and the application name is listed in it hence showing it here) however deleting that too won’t harm anything but I kept it and removed the rest of the files.

Note: Deleting the wrong files from the Library may create issues for your other apps. so, look at the files carefully before you remove them.

In short, that’s how easily you can remove apps from your Mac.

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