Delete Pre-Installed Apps

[casperes1996]

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...)

Aside from iLife and iWork, yes.

 

[sashavegas]

it has been discuss here

remove preinstalled apps [big sur MacBook pro m1]

How to remove preinstalled apps as FaceTime and Tv.apps? I have tried a lot (even with SIP disabled) but nothing works.

forums.macrumors.com

so if you willing to dance with system integrity, yes

 

[blicked]

If only I could get rid of Music. It's an awful app designed to point you towards Apple Music as much as possible. As someone who still prefers to download my music, it's not an ideal app for me. Swinsian is what I use and it's perfect, but if it isn't open and I press play on the TouchBar (which I hope goes away soon) it'll automatically open Music, and I haven't even agreed to the Terms and Conditions of the dang thing. So frustrating.

 

[rehkram]

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).

Since you asked "who accesses their apps from the apps folder"? That would be me. One use case is when dragging + dropping apps from the download folder, for example new versions of OCLP. Another use case is when needing to sort them by name.

 

[fisherking]

Since you asked "who accesses their apps from the apps folder"? That would be me. One use case is when dragging + dropping apps from the download folder, for example new versions of OCLP. Another use case is when needing to sort them by name.

no harm in any of that (altho how often are you adding apps to the folder?).

really, we have a number of ways of getting to our apps, and... whatever works, works. and if we have to ignore built-in apps we never use... doesn't seem that serious. how much time does anyone spend in that folder? hopefully a lot less that the time spent in an app....

 

[rehkram]

How often? Every time a new release of OCLP hits, for example. BTW I would dearly love to delete chess and other trivial built-in apple apps because I like to declutter.

 

[fisherking]

How often? Every time a new release of OCLP hits, for example. BTW I would dearly love to delete chess and other trivial built-in apple apps because I like to declutter.

and that's what this comes down to; you want to delete chess (so do i, and 4 or 5 other apps) but the OS doesn't want you to. so we can leave them there, and get on with life... or not.

either way, 'chess' doesn't keep you from dragging a new app into the apps folder. so it goes.

 

[rehkram]

It really is not an issue for me actually. macOS has some quirks, all operating systems have their quirks. The fact that chess is an immutable part of the opsys is just one of them.

Here's another use case for finder-accessing the /applications folder: Creating aliases. I keep a folder on my desktop called 'Network'. It contains some app aliases to network utilities like LanScan, WiFi Explorer and Speed Test. It also contains web links to router management GUIs, printer GUI, NAS GUI, and a VNC link to share the screen of the other Mac on the network.

I find this very handy when the network is down and/or being reconfigured. Double click and I've got them all there. I do also group the network utility apps in Launchpad but mainly to be tidy.

 

[DaveFromCampbelltown]

Some general comments --

• All operating systems (Mac/Windows/Linux) come with a suite of apps that are pre-installed. Some are useful, some aren't.
• Ignore the ones that aren't useful to you. It's not worth the bother of deleting them.
• Put the apps you use most often in the dock/taskbar.
• If (as in Linux) you don't have a dock, install 'Plank'. Go to previous point.
• If what you want isn't in the dock, press CMD-Space(mac) or Windows (Win or Linux) and type the first few characters of your app.

 

[casperes1996]

Some general comments --

• All operating systems (Mac/Windows/Linux) come with a suite of apps that are pre-installed. Some are useful, some aren't.
• Ignore the ones that aren't useful to you. It's not worth the bother of deleting them.
• Put the apps you use most often in the dock/taskbar.
• If (as in Linux) you don't have a dock, install 'Plank'. Go to previous point.
• If what you want isn't in the dock, press CMD-Space(mac) or Windows (Win or Linux) and type the first few characters of your app.

Linux is a kernel. There are Linux distributions that have a dock by default as part of their desktop environments, not all have search and not all access search the same way. Linux as a kernel comes with no default applications, Linux distributions and desktop environments do
Writing this more for the benefit of people reading your post than for you

 

[AJotr]

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?

Hey everybody. Just registered here because I found a very reasonable and EASY workaround for this problem, which is exactly the same for me... (OS X Monterey, M1 chip etc)

1. Basically start by making a folder for your "Favorite Apps" with any name you want inside the User/Applications folder (not the System one - can't anyway). I called mine simply "*MY APPLICATIONS" (with the asterisk so it gets filed at the top).
   
   
2. One by one, move the Apps you WANT & ENJOY into your personal "Favorite Apps" folder. YES, the ones hard-wired into the System/Applications (like TV, Stocks, Home etc - you know, the bloatware in question) will only Copy to your new folder but that's fine. Other Apps will ask for Authentication (Password or Fingerprint).
   
   
3. You now have a folder of ONLY the Apps you want to quickly reference and / or use regularly.
   
   
4. Now here comes the Convenience.... Drag you new personal "Favorite Apps" folder to the Finder Left Sidebar, where you probably see the System / Applications icon as well as Downloads, Desktop etc. I recommend you place your personal "Favorite Apps" folder at The Top of the list.
   
   
5. Move the System / Applications folder (the one you toggle in "Finder / Preferences / Sidebar") to the bottom of the list, and / or switch it off completely from even appearing in the Sidebar.
   
   
6. As others have mentioned, the super-annoying / useless bloatware apps like TV and Home (which use negligible space) are now no longer in your personal "Favorites Apps" folder which has replaced the System Applications folder in the Sidebar. You never have to see or deal with that bloatware again, and when you click your "Favorites Apps" folder on the Sidebar you see Only The Apps You Like.
   
   
7. Simple, easy, no hacking or SIP stuff... and you literally never have to look inside the bloated System/Applications folder ever again.

 

[Artiste212]

Hey everybody. Just registered here because I found a very reasonable and EASY workaround for this problem, which is exactly the same for me... (OS X Monterey, M1 chip etc)

1. Basically start by making a folder for your "Favorite Apps" with any name you want inside the User/Applications folder (not the System one - can't anyway). I called mine simply "*MY APPLICATIONS" (with the asterisk so it gets filed at the top).
   
   
2. One by one, move the Apps you WANT & ENJOY into your personal "Favorite Apps" folder. YES, the ones hard-wired into the System/Applications (like TV, Stocks, Home etc - you know, the bloatware in question) will only Copy to your new folder but that's fine. Other Apps will ask for Authentication (Password or Fingerprint).
   
   
3. You now have a folder of ONLY the Apps you want to quickly reference and / or use regularly.
   
   
4. Now here comes the Convenience.... Drag you new personal "Favorite Apps" folder to the Finder Left Sidebar, where you probably see the System / Applications icon as well as Downloads, Desktop etc. I recommend you place your personal "Favorite Apps" folder at The Top of the list.
   
   
5. Move the System / Applications folder (the one you toggle in "Finder / Preferences / Sidebar") to the bottom of the list, and / or switch it off completely from even appearing in the Sidebar.
   
   
6. As others have mentioned, the super-annoying / useless bloatware apps like TV and Home (which use negligible space) are now no longer in your personal "Favorites Apps" folder which has replaced the System Applications folder in the Sidebar. You never have to see or deal with that bloatware again, and when you click your "Favorites Apps" folder on the Sidebar you see Only The Apps You Like.
   
   
7. Simple, easy, no hacking or SIP stuff... and you literally never have to look inside the bloated System/Applications folder ever again.

This sounds like a good idea on the face of it, but there can be unforseen consequences. When an application is run from another folder than the Application folder (not including sub-folders), it is being run in "translocation." Sometimes, certain things won't work. For example, Little Snitch will complain, and you'll have to give the app all new permissions to work. I don't know if App store apps would update properly, either. This also affects how app signing is recognized, and can result in this:

Prior to the appearance of M1 Macs, app translocation was an additional security measure applied to some apps which were being launched for the first time on that Mac. Instead of being run from their current location, the app is copied complete into a folder deep in the bowels of the hidden /var folder, and run from there. This is intended to disrupt any attempts by a malicious app to exploit relative file paths, as it breaks them.

From: Eclectic Light Company

I'm not saying it won't sometimes work, but I am saying it sometimes wont.

Why not just create an alias in "MY APPLICATIONS" for each of the apps you'd like to run? That avoids all the problem.