How to uninstall iOS/iPadOS apps on M1 Macs and where do they store their files?

[tyrrell]

How do you uninstall iOS apps on Apple Silicon Macs? Obviously i know you can drag the icon to the trash, but does this delete associated files? I can't find anything anywhere online about this.

For instance, I am running Overcast and have downloaded several hundred megabytes of podcasts. Where are these files stored? They do not seem to be in the app binary, or if they are it is not reported in the size calculation via the file system, and using 'Show Package Contents' doesn't show any likely locations.

AppCleaner finds only the app binary of a few MB and a small group container folder of a few KB. EasyFind (just searching for "overcast") finds a bunch of files and folders, but none are large enough to contain the podcast audio files. It also reports not just one but two folders called `Overcast` in `Library/Mobile Documents` but the 'Reveal in Finder' command does not show them, and they do not seem to be there even when show invisible files is on in the Finder. I reckon these folders are most likely related to iCloud syncing for the iOS app on my iPhone, but who knows.

So does anyone have any idea where iOS apps on M1 Macs store their files?

 

[tyrrell]

Anyone?

 

[tyrrell]

In case anyone is interested I did some minor testing. Last night I sent the Overcast app binary to the trash, and emptied it. The disk space did not seem to change by very much (hard to tell with APFS, as it jumps around a lot due to periodic purging of reclaimed space). This morning i re-downloaded it from the App Store, launched it, and all the previously downloaded podcasts were still there in the library, that is they didn't need to be downloaded again. Therefore they must be stored in a cache in some mystery location, and not deleted if you send the app to the trash (or at least not immediately).

Now, maybe this is marked as purgeable space and with more time or a restart this space will eventually be purged by the filesystem. I'll do some more light testing. But it does kind of concern me that iOS apps will eat up disk space that the user has little control over. What if i use the HBO app and download multiple GB of HD video for offline watching? How do i reclaim this space in a pinch? Do i have to do it within the app? What if i have deleted the app and can't re-download it?

Maybe someone can suggest a better way of tracing where these files are being written stored using snapshotting or something.

 

[tyrrell]

To those interested:

iOS files seem to be in the `~/Library/Containers/`folder. In this case, there is a`~/Library/Containers/Overcast` folder that is 4GB, and `Data/Documents` within that is where my audio files are (m4a, some are playable, some not, no idea why...). Apps such as EasyFind do not see this location for some reason.

This folder does not get immediately deleted when you delete the iOS app binary.

I've deleted Overcast again, and I'll wait to see if it is purged eventually, but if not, this is a pretty terrible oversight, given how a user could fill up their disk quite easily with some iOS apps and how obscure this location is.

 

[randomgeeza]

Personally, I would always use Find Any File and set it to root level access. A simple word search in there would pull up all results across all drives in relation to what it is you are searching for. This then highlights those hidden places where files are deposited. I find it easy to remove apps completely using this method.

 

[tyrrell]

Yes, i know how to search thanks. That's what i was doing with EasyFind, which uses the same underlying APIs, and produces largely the same results as Find Any File. root mode is unnecessary since I'm the only user account on this Mac, and anyway doesn't show any results a regular search does not.

However Apple has implemented this, there is some sort of obfuscation or naming weirdness going on in the filesystem. Neither of these apps finds this folder. They do identify some files within it, which can be revealed with the reveal in Finder command, but then it takes the user to go up several levels and use get info to find the size of the containing folder.

The main point is an iOS app could conceivably fill up an entire hard drive with files that are virtually impossible to find for the average user, even using tools such as EasyFind and AppCleaner, let alone more casual users. Good citizen, native Mac apps generally do not this without prompting the user for where the files are saved, or putting them in a super obvious location, not some obscure, hidden system folder. It took me a week of digging around and posting on various sites to find out where they were. What the hell is an average user who, being used to how things work on iOS with iOS apps, deletes one from their Mac and then has no space left to do?

Maybe Apple devs have thought of this, and the folders associated with uninstalled iOS apps in `~/Library/Containers/` are eventually purged. We'll see. But it is not a great implementation if once you have uninstalled an app, you need to know *exactly* where to go in the library folder to reclaim its space.

 

[randomgeeza]

Yes I have to agree. Apple's previous model of easy to use, simplification has long since past.

 

[MacD]

I installed Bloons TD6 using the backdoor method to install the App, since it's not listed in the App store to put on my M1 Mac. However, I logged into the game with the wrong id, and the instructions for Bloons TD6 says I need to delete the app and re-install it to enable a different ID, logging out alone doesn't work. I deleted the app and reinstalled it, and the same user data is with it. I dug around in containers and was unable to find anything associated with Bloons TD6. This is very concerning as OP pointed out, not knowing where this data is and not having it deleted automatically as it is on iOS.

Guess I will need to watch what files change when I launch the App to find the associated files to be deleted with it.

 

[MacD]

That worked...

In terminal:

cd ~/Library/Containers
find . -iname "*bloons*"

This gave an output showing a match in an obscured directory name. I deleted the app and then deleted the obscured directory with:

rm -Rf 2EC6B4BC-DD8D-4D49-89A1-4376990BF693

Reinstalled Bloons TD6 and it asked me to login and I was successful.

 

[DarkPrinc3]

That worked...

In terminal:

cd ~/Library/Containers
find . -iname "*bloons*"

This gave an output showing a match in an obscured directory name. I deleted the app and then deleted the obscured directory with:

rm -Rf 2EC6B4BC-DD8D-4D49-89A1-4376990BF693

Reinstalled Bloons TD6 and it asked me to login and I was successful.

@MacD ... this was incredibly helpful thank you! Can we look at getting this put into the instructions on how to install / de-install sticky / post on MacRumors?

I had this same issue with the Xbox app where after changing my password, it would not let me log in on my Mac. On my iPad I just had to delete and re-install the app, but that wouldn't work on my M1 Mac, until I did exactly what you said. Thank you for posting!!!