Restart the Mac in Safe Mode, delete startup items that might be the problem, then restart normally. Start up with macOS Recovery and use Disk Utility to repair the drive.
Wouldn't you love to rid of some or all files on your Mac forever. Be it for storage space or reselling it. Perhaps your Mac is too old to take the next operating system version, or you’ve stored a lot of data on it, and you’re worried that it could be hijacked if stolen.
The last thing you want is to see that your data was leaked by some hacker, leaving you vulnerable and without a clue of what to do next.
The good news is you can permanently delete files from your Mac using several methods that we’ll show you in this guide.
Can My Files Be Retrieved Once I Delete Them
The short answer is yes.
Data recovery technology has made it possible to recover files and restore them, which means someone else can retrieve any files you delete from a hard drive.
Most new Macs come with the solid state drives (flash storage) or Fusion Drives for some iMacs, instead of the old spinning hard disk drives. That is a critical factor when it comes to securely delete files on your Mac because you won’t have to do so if it comes with an SSD.
Delete Files Off Mac
If you have an older Mac, it probably has a regular HDD, but the newer models with the SSDs allow you to use the standard method of moving files and emptying the trash to erase files, compared to securely erasing the files.
Unlike HDDs, where secure file deletion works, it doesn’t with the SSDs because overwriting a file only creates a new one in a new location but doesn’t overwrite the old file’s contents.
Thankfully though, there are different methods you can use to permanently delete files on your Mac, whether it has the old HDDs or the SSDs.
Note: You can check the storage on your Mac by clicking the Apple logo at the upper left side of the screen, and then going to About This Mac>Storage. Under the disk icon, you'll see whether your Mac has a spinning HDD or an SSD.Move Files to Trash
This is a tried and true method of deleting files on your Mac by dragging it to the trash. You can also use the Move to Trash feature by right-clicking the file and selecting the option. From here, you can go ahead and empty the trash.
Delete Immediately is a feature introduced by Apple with OS X (macOS) 10.11 El Capitan that bypasses the trash when you delete a file. Essential mac apps 2017. It’s much faster than Move to Trash as you simply highlight your files and then use the Option-Command-Delete shortcut.
Alternatively, you can go to Finder’s File menu and hold down Option key to change the Move to Trash option to Delete Immediately. You’ll be asked to confirm the deletion, just as you would when using Move to Trash option.
If you want to skip the empty trash confirmation, go to your keyboard and press the shortcut Command-Option-Shift-Delete. That will bypass the dialog window to confirm the deletion and empty the trash instantly.
If that is too difficult for you to remember or cumbersome, change Finder preferences setting to kill the confirmation. Go to Menu>Preferences and uncheck the Show warning before emptying the Trash box under Advanced tab.
Secure Empty Trash
This is another simple solution to deleting your files permanently from your Mac. It ensures that the items are deleted forever by writing random data over them multiple times.
The feature came with Mac OS X 10.3 Panther. It overwrites data seven times to increase security.
To use this feature, click Finder menu and select Secure Empty Trash just below Empty Trash.
Use a Third-Party App
If deleting your files by emptying the trash doesn’t help, you can get a third party application to force the trash to empty. There are many such apps available like Permanent Eraser or Clean My Mac, which can help you empty your trash completely and permanently.
Use Mac Terminal
Mac’s Terminal is a command line tool that allows you to complete tedious tasks such as file deletion easily in just a few seconds. The program uses Unix commands to perform several functions easily and quickly without the operating system interfering with its processes. It’s efficient and powerful as it helps you remove files with ease, permanently.
However, if you haven't used the command line, Terminal can be dangerous too. Before getting into it, familiarize yourself with some basic Terminal commands, because any wrong command you enter can cause damage to your system, and you could easily delete files faster than you’d have time to stop the process.
The precision of every character, including capitalization and spaces, is important when using terminal commands.
To get started, take the steps below:
Step 1: Open Finder and click Applications>Utilities>Terminal.
Step 2: In the new window, a command prompt with the $ (dollar sign) will appear. The command line you’ll see is ComputerName:CurrentDirectory ~Username$ and the word Bash at the top, which is the Terminal language in a Mac.
Step 3: Type your command and press the Return key after each command to execute it, or copy and paste the command into the terminal window. Type rm and space, and then drag and drop the file(s) you want to get rid of permanently into the Terminal window. Press Enter to remove it forever.
Note: You can also enter the file’s path into Terminal if you want to remove the file even faster without using drag and drop.
Easily Delete Files for Good
Before you delete the files, make sure you have a backup of your data in case something goes awry. Of course, we would recommend you to get familiar with Terminal for it can be extremely powerful in erasing files while the interface may suffer a glitch or would be slow.
Next up:Want to delete your iCloud storage from your Mac and iPhone? Our next article shows you all the steps you need to take to clear out your storage.
The above article may contain affiliate links which help support Guiding Tech. However, it does not affect our editorial integrity. The content remains unbiased and authentic. ![]() Did You Know
Thunderbolt 3 is a data and video transfer protocol and is developed by Intel.
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Removing apps from mac is not as easy as it sounds. It may look like a simple drag and drop task, however uninstalling an application may leave several supplementary files on your device.
Manually finding out these files and deleting them can be a frustrating and time-consuming task, also they do not guarantee desired results. The use of the best uninstaller for mac is what will help you in such scenarios.
Over time these residual and cache files build up and add up gigabytes of junk which eat away a lot of system space
An uninstaller application is designed to delete the required applications and neatly clean all the leftover files associated with it. Doing this will not only reduce system load, boost its performance but also optimize your mac.
To make your task easy and help you pick the best uninstaller for mac, we have prepared a well-researched list of the most efficient tools. Let’s have a look at these dedicated tools to remove apps from mac.
9 Best Mac Uninstaller Apps to Remove Apps From Mac in 2020:App To Delete Files Mac Catalina1. Easy Mac Care
Are you looking for the best uninstaller app for mac, which can enhance its speed and give you a smoother experience, then there is no better application than Easy Mac Care.
Powered with efficient features it is known for its cleaning and optimizing abilities. Use it to uninstall various apps and remove the leftover files to boost the overall efficiency and performance of your device.
Recover additional storage space by deleting system junk, duplicate files, browsing history and other unwanted files.
More than being a simple uninstaller app it also works well as a PC tune up, cache manager and startup optimization tool.
Apart from this it also works well as a system protection tool and guards your devices against harmful viruses and digital threats.
Read More: Best Free Mac optimizer and cleaner tools
2. Cleanmymac X
Cleanmymac X earns the second place on our list of mac cleaners for fairly good reasons. It is a powerful tool and comes with several utility functions including speed optimization, malware protection, and comprehensive file management capabilities.
It makes the task of uninstalling apps highly easy and can effortlessly scan and sort all your downloaded applications. It can sort them based on their category, last use, vendors, etc.
Use it to perform a system scan and check the health of your device. After a successful scan cleanmymac X will display a detailed list of all your applications along with the details of data cache, app leftovers and supporting files of each application.
Cleanmymac X is an ultimate deep cleaner utility tool. Remover app mac. Use it to locate the unwanted apps and delete them permanently with their supporting files to reduce the system, retrieve space on your mac and boost overall system performance.
3. App Zapper
App Zapper is known for its simple working and in-depth system cleanup. With this compact uninstaller tool for mac you can simply drag and drop applications into its interface and look out for supporting files.
You can also refer to its Hit List which gives details of the apps consuming maximum space on your system. To delete apps from your Mac, simply select them along with the associated files and remove them. Apart from this, it’s Undo feature also gives you an option to recover accidentally deleted apps. Use this simple yet efficient tool to get rid of junk files, plugins, widgets and many more.
4. App Cleaner and Uninstaller
Another incredible uninstaller for mac that effortlessly deletes apps from your Mac is “App Cleaner and Uninstaller”. Use it to recover space on your mac, remove supporting files along with system junk, residual files, cache and much more.
To remove a particular application, simply select it from the application list and uninstall it. The best part about this tool is that, even if you are deleting the application manually, it will automatically remove all the supporting files. However, during this process, it ensures that no important system app is deleted.
Use it to get rid of browser extensions, plugins, unneeded installation files, prefpanes and other junk and unwanted files on your Mac.
If you want to fully optimize your mac, pick App cleaner and uninstaller for class apart results.
Read More: 7 Best Disk Cloning Apps For Mac in 2020
5. App Delete
If you are still searching for an app cleaner for mac, you can pick App delete. With this power-packed tool you can not only remove supporting and leftover files of the uninstalled app but also get rid of various screensavers, widgets, plugins, preference panes.
This helps in recovering precious system space and makes your Mac perform faster. It comes with a simple yet effective working and can effortlessly find unwanted files. Apart from the basic functionalities App Delete also comes with advanced features like Clear Logs, AppReset and Library folder.
This uninstaller for mac application comes with a Trash monitoring feature, which automatically starts deleting supporting files as soon as you uninstall an application from your device.
6. Trash Me
Next on our list of best app removers for mac is Trash Me. If you want to remove and uninstall apps from your mac it can be a great pick. Use this intelligent tool to get rid of supporting files, system cache.
The app comes with a Smart Detection Feature which when enabled will automatically start the file cleaning process as soon as you delete an app from your device. Apart from this it’s alert button also keeps sending notification messages whenever the trash bin is full.
Use the best uninstaller apps for your Mac to revoke system space by removing cache files, system junk and other unwanted files.
7. Hazel
If you are still searching for an efficient app cleaner tool for mac than Hazel. This handy uninstaller for mac earns it a place on our list because of fairly good reasons.
It comes with a condition-based rule which starts functioning as soon as you perform certain tasks. This feature is particularly beneficial for file organizing, archiving, photo naming, for keeping your desktop clean and most importantly for deleting apps.
Apart from this it also comes with special rules and app configuration features which allows you to set limits and automatically delete files from the trash.
Powered with a simple and user-friendly interface, Hazel is a good pick if you want to keep your mac optimized. https://amtdgj.weebly.com/blog/remove-stock-apps-mac.
8. CleanGeeker
Next on our list is this best free app uninstaller for mac. With this powerful tool, you can effortlessly remove apps from Mac along with their supporting files. Apart from this it also comes from a one-click feature that allows you to remove unwanted files and system junk.
Use it to optimize your Mac by deleting old downloads, duplicate files, login items, and large files. If you are struggling with the slow speed of your device, CleanGeeker will not only help you to recover disk space but will also boost its overall performance. Besides the free trial version, you can also buy its advanced version at a premium price.
Read More: 10 Best Photo Organizer For Mac
9. Osx Uninstaller
If the above-mentioned applications have not been of great help to you, try Osx Uninstaller to remove apps from your Mac. It comes with a clean and convenient interface with simple working. The Application intelligently displays an elaborated list of all the installed apps.
Simply select the app you wish to remove from your device, then click on the Run analysis button and press the Complete Universal button. Best screen video captura app for mac os. Doing this will not only remove the app but also remove all supporting and leftover files associated with it. Keeps Your Mac protected with Osx Uninstaller.
The only drawback of this multi-functional tool is that it comes at an unreasonably high cost.
Wrapping UpApp To Delete Files Mac Hard Drive
So this is it Mac users. We hope that our list of uninstallers for mac has answered all your related questions. Refer to our list and pick the best-suited app remover for mac.
Mac Delete File Key
All the apps mentioned above are loaded with advanced functionalities and features. Use them to delete app and system junk, recover memory space and optimize your Mac.
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