Delete Pre-Installed Apps

[Maclver]

How do I go about deleting some of the pre-installed apps?


I am unable to delete,

Chess, Podcasts, Stocks, Shortcuts, News, Home, Books.....

Sadly this didn't work either csrutil disable

Any ideas?

 

[fisherking]

you can look thru these forums, or google it, but basically (& forever), some apps are considered part of the system, and are not meant to be uninstalled. besides, all those apps combined equals about 160mb, so you don't gain anything significant without them.

 

[casperes1996]

I strongly discourage trying to delete system apps. They are not always just apps, but may include system components not just used by the app in question but the wider system.

However, if you have disabled System Integrity Protection - which I also discourage unless you have a really good reason to do so - I do believe you should be able to sudo rm -R the application bundle

 

[fisherking]

i doubt apps like chess, or podcasts are truly 'essential' for the OS. and, if one disables SIP to remove an app, you can then re-enable SIP, and life goes on... csrutil enable

 

[casperes1996]

i doubt apps like chess, or podcasts are truly 'essential' for the OS. and, if one disables SIP to remove an app, you can then re-enable SIP, and life goes on... csrutil enable

I agree that Chess probably isn't. Podcast probably not either. But as a rule of thumb, they can include system components - Like, I'd recommend not trying to get entirely rid of QuickTime for example

 

[fisherking]

I agree that Chess probably isn't. Podcast probably not either. But as a rule of thumb, they can include system components - Like, I'd recommend not trying to get entirely rid of QuickTime for example

i'd agree about quicktime; just thinking about apps like stocks, home, chess, podcasts, tv... anyway, i can't see any benefit to deleting stock apps these days, unless your hard drive has 64gb...

 

[Apple_Robert]

Put the stock apps you don't want to use in a folder and forget about them. You could mess up your system trying to circumvent reasonable and practical self-control.

 

[fisherking]

Put the stock apps you don't want to use in a folder and forget about them. You could mess up your system trying to circumvent reasonable and practical self-control.

between the dock, launchpad, spotlight, etc... who accesses their apps from the apps folder? (seriously, am asking this). i can't remember the last time i opened that folder, and... easy to ignore 'chess' and just click on 'contacts' (for example).

EDIT: anyway, seems you can only copy default apps to a folder, not actually move them from their default location...

 

[jz0309]

Aren’t the apps on a read-only volume/partition?

 

[fisherking]

Aren’t the apps on a read-only volume/partition?

the apps are locked down with the OS, and not designed to be removed... but the applications folder, of course, is not read-only, so we can add the apps we need there.

 

[elptdbi3lYI]

It's not enough to disable SIP anymore, you'll also need to create new apfs snapshot but then your OS won't be able to update anymore.

 

[fisherking]

It's not enough to disable SIP anymore, you'll also need to create new apfs snapshot but then your OS won't be able to update anymore.

so, really, there is no practical or useful reason to delete chess, et al...

 

[Moka Akashiya]

You cannot even hide all that bloatware anymore since 10.15 and customize standard Applications folder, very sad thing. I hope someday Apple will make these apps proper App Store entries, not "features" of OS releases.

 

[jz0309]

the apps are locked down with the OS, and not designed to be removed... but the applications folder, of course, is not read-only, so we can add the apps we need there.

that is certainly true - but look at the difference of location for the 2 apps below.
Is the "Application folder" just a single view into 2 different folders? one on Macintosh HD and the other on Macintosh HD Data? I do not know ...

 

[casperes1996]

that is certainly true - but look at the difference of location for the 2 apps below.
Is the "Application folder" just a single view into 2 different folders? one on Macintosh HD and the other on Macintosh HD Data? I do not know ...


View attachment 1855084

I mean to me those two locations are very much separate

____

But if you disable SIP, can't you mount the system volume as read-write? Possibly in Single User Mode? I've never had a need or a desire to do so, but I thought it was possible

 

[casperes1996]

Addendum; Finder does not show separate volumes for the Data and System volume - If you go to /Applications through Finder, it will indeed be a view of both the System Applications and the /Applications

 

[fisherking]

seems

You cannot even hide all that bloatware anymore since 10.15 and customize standard Applications folder, very sad thing. I hope someday Apple will make these apps proper App Store entries, not "features" of OS releases.

'all that bloatware' is 6 or so apps, adding up to less than 150mb. and some apps (like 'chess') have always been there.

should not be an issue for anyone in 2021 (or, for that matter, 2011, etc)

 

[Maclver]

seems

'all that bloatware' is 6 or so apps, adding up to less than 150mb. and some apps (like 'chess') have always been there.

should not be an issue for anyone in 2021 (or, for that matter, 2011, etc)

It’s not about space. It’s the principle of the matter, we should be able to delete apps we don’t use. Makes no sense to lock down the OS so much.

 

[Moka Akashiya]

seems

'all that bloatware' is 6 or so apps, adding up to less than 150mb. and some apps (like 'chess') have always been there.

should not be an issue for anyone in 2021 (or, for that matter, 2011, etc)

I think there is "6 or so" system apps:
Time Machine.app
Siri.app
Launchpad.app
Find My.app
App Store.app
System Preferences.app
Mission Control.app
Font Book.app

And some other apps (28, root Applications folder):
Calculator.app
Books.app
Calendar.app (Day-O is more system than this?)
Chess.app
Contacts.app
Dictionary.app
FaceTime.app
Home.app
Mail.app
Maps.app
Messages.app
Music.app
News.app
Notes.app
Photo Booth.app
Photos.app
Podcasts.app
Preview.app
QuickTime Player.app
Reminders.app
Stickies.app
Stocks.app
TextEdit.app
TV.app
Voice Memos.app
Safari.app
Image Capture.app
Automator.app

You also always have option to hide apps, before macOS 10.15. Should not be an issue for anyone in 2021.
And yep, problem is not with size, i just want my Applications folder be not flooded with useless stuff, that will be never opened, because this is default installation folder for apps and packages.

 

[fisherking]

I think there is "6 or so" system apps:
Time Machine.app
Siri.app
Launchpad.app
Find My.app
App Store.app
System Preferences.app
Mission Control.app
Font Book.app

And some other apps (28, root Applications folder):
Calculator.app
Books.app
Calendar.app (Day-O is more system than this?)
Chess.app
Contacts.app
Dictionary.app
FaceTime.app
Home.app
Mail.app
Maps.app
Messages.app
Music.app
News.app
Notes.app
Photo Booth.app
Photos.app
Podcasts.app
Preview.app
QuickTime Player.app
Reminders.app
Stickies.app
Stocks.app
TextEdit.app
TV.app
Voice Memos.app
Safari.app
Image Capture.app
Automator.app

You also always have option to hide apps, before macOS 10.15. Should not be an issue for anyone in 2021.
And yep, problem is not with size, i just want my Applications folder be not flooded with useless stuff, that will be never opened, because this is default installation folder for apps and packages.

okay, but how do you access your apps? the dock? spotlight? opening the applications folder? there are a good number of default apps i don't ever need or use... but they're not keeping me from doing what i want to do.

but, fair enough. the less you use any of the above apps, the less reason they have to be there.

 

[Moka Akashiya]

okay, but how do you access your apps? the dock? spotlight? opening the applications folder? there are a good number of default apps i don't ever need or use... but they're not keeping me from doing what i want to do.

Before Big Sur i was droping Applications folder to the Dock with Grid view, and do stack with last opened apps (called smart-folders now). Currently i need to have subfolder with personal Apps and aliases to default apps and better-to-not-move apps. I don't really like Spotlight, because there is no way to exclude folders from indexing by name template (node_modules, etc), this is rare usecase of course, but still missing more "editable" file system for sudo users. Another personal pain - you cannot "chmod -x" Music.app anymore, so when you click Play/Pause key out of another player focus or accidentally - this app will always open.

 

[jakespeed]

Similar to others, I went through this pain a few years ago when they split the read only system volume away from the data volume. Before that, I could at least use "chflags --hidden" for of the "unused" apps which worked well for kidding unused stuff. Like you I also would use a stack in the dock to show my application folder quickly.

With Big Sur (or perhaps it was Mojave) it no longer worked.....so I begrudgingly decided to embrace the Launcher. Once I spent some time organizing (and going yuck at the "iPadness" of it all) I have been pretty happy with using a 4 finger quick access to the full app list.

 

[n-evo]

I agree that Chess probably isn't. Podcast probably not either. But as a rule of thumb, they can include system components - Like, I'd recommend not trying to get entirely rid of QuickTime for example

The QuickTime.app in /Applications is simply a front-end. No critical components or frameworks are located within its package contents. Those are located in /System.

 

[casperes1996]

The QuickTime.app in /Applications is simply a front-end. No critical components or frameworks are located within its package contents. Those are located in /System.

Regardless, if you do delete the QuickTime application bundle some applications will refuse to run audio-video functionality complaining about a lack of QuickTime components. Though that application may well have been extraordinarily weirdly written, all I know is that I've seen it happen

 

[Fishrrman]

Very general question:

Aren't all these pre-installed "Apple apps" located on the "secure system volume", and thus relatively impervious to "user removal"?

(at least not without special tricks that might be beyond the reach of the average user...)