remove preinstalled apps [big sur MacBook pro m1]

[snakes-]

With 11.1 clean install will it work? (web recovery and usb) For my last clean install i had to visit a friend with apple configurator 2

 

[isabelled90]

Step 1 : boot into recovery and from terminal there issue the following
csrutil disable
csrutil authenticated-root disable
Reboot

Step 2 : once back at desktop, from terminal type mount, you should see deviceses like /dev/disk1s5s1, your case might be different, but look for disk that represent /Volume/Macontosh HD, or whatever your name.

Step 3: from terminal type mkdir mnt, it will create directory in your user home

Step 4: mount this as following:
sudo mount -o nobrowse -t apfs /dev/disk1s5 mnt/
make sure you use disk1s5, not disk1s5s1, remove last "s1"

once mounted from terminal

sudo rm -rf mnt and drag application you want to delete, for example
sudo rm -rf mnt/System/Applications/Maps.app , hit enter

repeat for any application you want to remove

Step4: once done , you need to bless the folder
from terminal
sudo bless --folder mnt/System/Library/CoreServices --bootefi --create-snapshot && sudo reboot

once reboot your application is gone forever.

P.S
in Mojave it was easy, in Catalina it was relativly easy , you still can mount volume by ussing "sudo mount -uw/"
BUT Big Sur, uses snapshot, so you cannot mount it the way in Catalina, and once you done messing your system, you need to create new snapshot, by using "blessing" comand.

Did you try on Big Sur?
And I actually tried to type mount in terminal but I don't see anything like /Volume/Macontosh HD

i have disk for :
-Volumes/VM
Volumes/Preboot
Volumes/Update
Volumes/xarts
Volumes/iSCPreboot
Volumes/Hardware
Volumes/Data
Volumes/Data/home

 

[sashavegas]

post here the screenshot when you type mount in terminal

 

[isabelled90]

ok

 

[sashavegas]

try disk3s1, if this not working, than disk3s5

 

[isabelled90]

Once I have disable '' csrutil and csrutil authenticated-root'' , I will be able to enable them again?

 

[Quackers]

Did you try on Big Sur?
And I actually tried to type mount in terminal but I don't see anything like /Volume/Macontosh HD

i have disk for :
-Volumes/VM
Volumes/Preboot
Volumes/Update
Volumes/xarts
Volumes/iSCPreboot
Volumes/Hardware
Volumes/Data
Volumes/Data/home

/Volume/Mcintosh HD NOT
/Volumes/Mcintosh HD
maybe

 

[isabelled90]

/Volume/Mcintosh HD NOT
/Volumes/Mcintosh HD
maybe

Pardon? what that means?

 

[buckrock]

Pardon? what that means?

In Terminal an entry with a space, like Macintosh HD is entered as Macintosh\ HD.
The other problem is there is a difference between volume, --volume, /Volumes/, /volumes/, etc.

If this is new information to you, then I strongly advise you don't try to use Terminal. Seasoned unix veterans always check entries twice and/or use Tab completion to avoid errors. I am always a little frightened when I read some advice that tells the user to type the rm command. Unix doesn't ask you if you "are sure?" I always use the -i option to confirm each file before deleting it.

 

[isabelled90]

There is not an alternative solution

 

[Zazoh]

There is not an alternative solution

I honestly would return it. I don’t think Apple is what you are looking for if immediately upon its purchase you need to disable core apps. Would the Windows or Chromebook be more suitable for your requirements?

 

[macdos]

Not at all out of mind. For example, I want to delete the Music app and the Books app.
I want iTunes 12.6.5.3 to handle my books (i.e to change tags and covers and do drag and drop transfers to my iPads). The Books app is worthless crap because it only allows transfers of books that you bought from Apple. This SUCKS big time. Anyway I'll stay on Mojave and maybe a couple of years from now things will get better and I will update the OS. I just wanted to point out that all users are not the same. Some people want to do things differently, that's why they ask for help in the forums.

There's Calibre, but it is slow and has an ugly interface.

Transfering books works fine in Books. Just drag from the window to the HD in order to get the original format. However, Books never modify the original epubs, but keep an internal database of changes.

Tranferring between devices should not be a problem. I have ten thousand books – non is Apple, all are imported – and they load to my Iphone as expected.

 

[macdos]

core apps

Core apps are those many people use on a frequent basis, like a brower and a mail client.

I never ever use and will never ever use Facetime, Home, Photos, Photobooth, Podcasts, Stocks or TV, and they are not "core" in any sense of the words, but bloat, crap and OS overhead that we need to download in vain every god damn time there is an OS update. They should be separate apps like Imovie and Pages for people who have the need.

EU needs to tell Apple this, the same way Microsoft was smacked for bundling apps.

 

[DaveFromCampbelltown]

There's Calibre, but it is slow and has an ugly interface.

Transfering books works fine in Books. Just drag from the window to the HD in order to get the original format. However, Books never modify the original epubs, but keep an internal database of changes.

Tranferring between devices should not be a problem. I have ten thousand books – non is Apple, all are imported – and they load to my Iphone as expected.

I rarely use Books any more, as I read books on iPhone and a Lenovo Android pad. I use Google Play Books for free books (i.e. from Project Gutenberg) and Scribd for paid-for books. The advantage of these two apps is that your book collection is held in the cloud and downloaded to the device you want to read it on. As well, where you have read up to is synchronised between devices.

 

[cfdlab]

There are tons of apps from apple that I will NEVER EVER use. Not being able to delete them is ridiculous considering they take up so much disk space and apple charges so much money for more ssd.

 

[mwidjaya]

they take up so much disk space

Fresh install takes up roughly 20GB.

Is that considered bloated?

 

[DaveFromCampbelltown]

The protected Applications folder takes up about 650 Mbytes out of a clean install of mebbe 23 Gbytes, or about 2%.
That is about 1/3 of the space that MS Word alone takes up, or a little more than Pages does.

 

[Tavicu]

The protected Applications folder takes up about 650 Mbytes out of a clean install of mebbe 23 Gbytes, or about 2%.
That is about 1/3 of the space that MS Word alone takes up, or a little more than Pages does.

It's not about the space

 

[Mr Todhunter]

There's Calibre, but it is slow and has an ugly interface.

Transfering books works fine in Books. Just drag from the window to the HD in order to get the original format. However, Books never modify the original epubs, but keep an internal database of changes.

Tranferring between devices should not be a problem. I have ten thousand books – non is Apple, all are imported – and they load to my Iphone as expected.

Thanks for your reply. True Calibre can modify tags but I also forgot to mention that audiobooks cannot be transfered to iOS devices if thet are not bought from the Apple.

 

[Mr Todhunter]

I rarely use Books any more, as I read books on iPhone and a Lenovo Android pad. I use Google Play Books for free books (i.e. from Project Gutenberg) and Scribd for paid-for books. The advantage of these two apps is that your book collection is held in the cloud and downloaded to the device you want to read it on. As well, where you have read up to is synchronised between devices.

I only read books on my iPads. And I read A LOT everyday (I am retired and I don’t have a tv). I find the Books app on my Mac completely useless for reading.

 

[macdos]

I only read books on my iPads. And I read A LOT everyday (I am retired and I don’t have a tv). I find the Books app on my Mac completely useless for reading.

Hm, I think Books is just right for reading (4K screen, dark mode) and keeping a library. It would have been perfect if it had reasonable editing cababilities, actually saving edits to books, allowing for language and other columns in the browser, and having an option for larger list view text and covers.

The sweet spot is somewhere between Books and Calibre. If Book were like Music, it would have hit that spot.

 

[isabelled90]

Someone has a video that shoes how to do to remove those apps?

 

[isabelled90]

Step 1 : boot into recovery and from terminal there issue the following
csrutil disable
csrutil authenticated-root disable
Reboot

Step 2 : once back at desktop, from terminal type mount, you should see deviceses like /dev/disk1s5s1, your case might be different, but look for disk that represent /Volume/Macontosh HD, or whatever your name.

Step 3: from terminal type mkdir mnt, it will create directory in your user home

Step 4: mount this as following:
sudo mount -o nobrowse -t apfs /dev/disk1s5 mnt/
make sure you use disk1s5, not disk1s5s1, remove last "s1"

once mounted from terminal

sudo rm -rf mnt and drag application you want to delete, for example
sudo rm -rf mnt/System/Applications/Maps.app , hit enter

repeat for any application you want to remove

Step4: once done , you need to bless the folder
from terminal
sudo bless --folder mnt/System/Library/CoreServices --bootefi --create-snapshot && sudo reboot

once reboot your application is gone forever.

P.S
in Mojave it was easy, in Catalina it was relativly easy , you still can mount volume by ussing "sudo mount -uw/"
BUT Big Sur, uses snapshot, so you cannot mount it the way in Catalina, and once you done messing your system, you need to create new snapshot, by using "blessing" comand.

Can you do a video? I'm a boomer et I'm scared about doing a big mistake and loose eveything

 

[WayneStewart]

The first thing I used to do after an install or upgrade is remove unwanted apps. I found it faster to find what I want without a lot of apps I had no use for. But Apple gradually made it harder and more time consuming, then with one OS things changed for the worse. After I removed the apps everything was was fine for a few weeks until the next update. The update put greyed out icons back for ever app I'd deleted. I then had to spend a bunch of time deleting those. Of course a few weeks later another update came out and put the same greyed out icons back. That's when I gave up. It was just too time consuming to delete the apps over and over again

 

[Zazoh]

On a lot of these things, the code base is integrated. Apple ships with Python 2.7, Latest release is 3.9, want to install 3.9, fine, want to remove 2.7, nope, os is using it.

Let's, say you don't use FaceTime on Mac, I don't, because it is tied to a phone call and video camera, it may rely on libraries contained within those modules and vice versa. I keep all the unused apps in a folder called Basura. Spanish for Trash.