Need an app that will tell me exactly what files are installed?

[blackxacto]

I need an app that will tell me what files are installed for my printer. If I run an overall cleaner app, these printer driver files get trashed. In order to disable the trashing of these SPECIFIC files, I need to know what they are when they get installed.

There used to be an app when I ran System 9, but I don't remember. It would graphically show any newly installed file and where it was located.

Any one know of one for Catalina?

 

[ignatius345]

Not sure what you mean by "overall cleaner app" but anything that's trashing your printer drivers sounds kind of fishy to me.

 

[blackxacto]

I want an app that will tell me what and where is installed, anytime I install software. Anyone know of a utility or app that will allow me to know what was placed on my SSD?

 

[Weaselboy]

AppCleaner

There is an app called AppCleaner that is intended to delete installed apps. You could drag the app you are curious about into AppCleaner and it will show you all the installed files that are part of that app like in my screenshot. Once you see the info you want, just click cancel rather than remove and quit the app.

 

[BrianBaughn]

You mean "moving forward"…right? I don't think you could install such a monitoring app and expect it to know what you did yesterday.

Appcleaner is good but I'm pretty sure it can miss a thing here or there.

Additionally, there are apps that install simply by dragging them to the Applications folder. At that point, you have one file associated with the installation. Once you start that new application, it will probably create a prefs file somewhere and often other files and folders associated with the implementation of the new application. I suppose this could also be true of apps that install via an installer.

Are you having some issue that is causing you to ask your question?

 

[Wowfunhappy]

There is no full-proof way to do this.

If your Printer drivers came in the form of a .app file, I second the recommendation for AppCleaner—it rarely grabs everything, but it's pretty good. However, your drivers probably came in the form of a .pkg.

I would recommend redownloading the .pkg you used to install the drivers, opening it in Installer, and selecting File ==> Show Files in the top menu bar. This will let you see everything the .pkg installs on your computer.

There's also the paid app UninstallPKG. I have in practice had mixed results.

 

[blackxacto]

I appreciate everyone's responses. I will try ApplicationCleaner and opening the driver package to examine its contents. Thank you very much.

There used to be an app in old system nine days that would immediately track all new files loaded following any installation, even revealing all the paths, wish I still had it. Wish I could remember the name.