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When a user mode application on the Mac doesn't just allow you to drag the app into the applications folder to install, it's a red huge red flag. Personally, I

When a user mode application on the Mac doesn't just allow you to drag the app into the applications folder to install, it's a red huge red flag. Personally, I'd look for another alternative from a company that better understands the Mac. Chrome, for instance, previously used an installer that had to run with administrative permissions and famously ended up rendering systems unbootable. System utilities and drivers are the exception, since they have to modify system folders to install. Partition Magic was pretty awesome, BTW.

everdrive 7mo ago
>When a user mode application on the Mac doesn't just allow you to drag the app into the applications folder to install, it's a red huge red flag. And the companies that make such products _never_ care about making sure an uninstallation is actually clean.
- ryandrake 7mo ago
  "Does it have a way to uninstall, and does that uninstallation clean every application artifact?" is such a great litmus test for just how much a software company actually cares about having a proper finished product that respects the user. Nobody forces a company to do it, but when they don't do it, you can probably bet that they're cutting corners and disrespecting the user's machine in other ways, too. It's like "Do you return your shopping cart to the cart storage or leave it in the carpark?" You're allowed to just shove your cart away and drive off, but people who do that are highly probably assholes in other ways, too.
  - GeekyBear 7mo ago
    Well said. I would add an appreciation for companies producing non-bloated, native software.
- al_borland 7mo ago
  In the file menu of the installer, there is generally an option to see all the files it is placing on the system with full system paths. I generally note this down so I can make sure to clean things up completely if/when needed. For app that just get dragged into the Applications folder, they end up doing all this additional file creation on first-launch instead of via an installer. That actually makes it harder. For those I tend to search the ~/Library folder for the name of the app and the company that made it, hoping I find all the remnants to delete. There are apps, like AppZapper and AppCleaner, which try to automate this process. I still think it’s ridiculous that Apple never solved for this. It’s one of the reasons I always do a manual migration to a new Mac. It feels like the only real way to clean things up.
  - xp84 7mo ago
    I'll have to check that installer trick the next time I use one. Isn't the "Receipts" folder that so angered OP kind of that same thing? I thought those included the list of files installed. In general, I think some worries about removing "every trace" are overblown, though. The receipts, for instance, are inert and they're not filling up the disk or consuming RAM. Of all the things Apple does in the name of "security" it's funny to me that they've never even tried to build uninstallation functionality. Even though a majority of apps with "Installers" use, not arbitrary installer executables like Windows, but .pkg files that open with Apple's "Installer" app. That means it's Apple's code placing most of those files in place, and even if the install includes a "script" portion, it seems like a solvable problem that Installer.app could monitor the files being added or changed by the script process, to at least let you view a log of what happened if not reverse the changes.
    - prerok 7mo ago
      There are two cases: I am uninstalling because I never want to use the app, or I am uninstalling because I know I currently don't need the app and will reinstall after 6 months when I do. An example of first is a trial of an app but you don't like it in the end, an example of the latter is a game that you might want to play with the same settings later. Now, I want the option. In the first case I don't want these inert files taking up disk space and in the second I want to have those files.
      - al_borland 7mo ago
        I stopped trying new apps as often, because I don't like how I can never really go back to a state before it was installed, unless the developer actually put effort into not spraying files everything and not leaving a trace once gone. I appreciate these developers very much, and am more likely to keep using their apps. The most junk an app install puts on my system, the more likely I am to want it gone.
    - gopher_space 7mo ago
      > In general, I think some worries about removing "every trace" are overblown, though. It's impossible to overstate how little I want random crap on my machine.
- eviks 7mo ago
  Almost never, indeed, so you need some 3rd party trash utilities with databases and heuristics. Though that's also on the gardener and his bad OS design where forced compartmentalization is's trivial, the weeds will never want to root themselves out!
vbezhenar 7mo ago
Mac apps often do various things on your computer. Just because you dragged it to Bin, doesn't mean there are no leftovers on your computer. I'd prefer proper uninstaller any day.
- GeekyBear 7mo ago
  Are you under the impression that Windows uninstallers don't leave files and registry settings behind?
  - PearlRiver 7mo ago
    I use this https://github.com/Klocman/Bulk-Crap-Uninstaller https://github.com/Klocman/Bulk-Crap-Uninstaller The nice thing about Windows is that people have been writing software for it for decades. A very underestimated advantage.
    - GeekyBear 7mo ago
      > The nice thing about Windows is that people have been writing software for it for decades. A very underestimated advantage. AppZapper has been doing the same thing on Macs for decades. https://www.wikipedia.org/wiki/AppZapper https://www.wikipedia.org/wiki/AppZapper
    - SpaceNugget 7mo ago
      Sorry an advantage over what? What desktop operating system in common use _hasn't_ had decades of development of pet projects on obvious problems like system cleanup? Literally every operating system has these kinds of things
    - jimmaswell 7mo ago
      The Macintosh came first, technically.
  - vbezhenar 7mo ago
    They certainly can clean everything after them. And I'm pretty sure that many of them do. When macOS user drags application folder to the Bin, application does not have a chance to clean after itself. Just because some Windows uninstaller are bad doesn't mean that all of them are bad, or that uninstaller concept is bad. Now I'd welcome for operating system to be built in a way to let user to delete everything related to the application. Maybe android or ios are built this way, but not macos.
post-it 7mo ago
I started developing for my Mac a few weeks ago and I'm blown away by how easy it is to make an app that feels Mac native and includes quality of life features like CloudKit sync across all your devices. It's become clear that most companies don't give the tiniest shit about any of that.
- xp84 7mo ago
  It's obvious why they wouldn't give a shit about that, though - the Mac is not their main focus. Most companies that make software for PCs are obliged to make at least Windows and Mac versions, and to build an application "The Apple Way," using SwiftUI, and things like "CloudKit" etc. would mean a whole dedicated Mac-experienced design team and Mac-experienced engineering team. This would result in an app that fundamentally works and behaves differently than their app would on Windows, because these operating systems have different conventions and standards. Now, that would make people like you and me very happy -- but consider it from the big company's perspective. Now instead of supporting a piece of software which has a single set of features and a single consistent (and 'braaanded,' eyeroll) Electron UI (and, mostly, a single set of bugs), you're supporting two completely different apps with completely different UIs. Building a new Important Feature means building it from the ground up twice, and QAing it twice. And customer service needs to be trained to walk customers through both of these different apps which work differently, and some of the customers are so confused, they can't even tell you if they're on a Mac or not. 25 years ago, before cross-platform frameworks existed (other than Java, which wasn't often used to these ends then), that was sort of how they had to do these things, and in practice, the results were either that a ton of hardware shipped with no Mac support whatsoever (wasn't worth it) or with a bare-bones Mac version on the CD that was incredibly low-effort, and clearly still written by people who barely knew how the Mac was meant to work. This very real phenomenon is why we are cursed with cross-platform everything. The difference between a single cross-platform codebase and even two dedicated good-citizen apps is a vast chasm.
  - asdff 7mo ago
    >This would result in an app that fundamentally works and behaves differently than their app would on Windows, because these operating systems have different conventions and standards. Not always the case. Sometimes the gui app is just wrapping some script written in a general purpose language. Button just calls a function. Yes writing the function to draw the ui button element might take a different syntax, but they might go on to run the same underlying function. At least that is how I like to write my gui software.
Aurornis 7mo ago
> When a user mode application on the Mac doesn't just allow you to drag the app into the applications folder to install, it's a red huge red flag. The applications you drag to the Apps folder can do the same things when you run them the first time. Being able to drag into the Apps folder doesn’t mean it won’t do things outside of that folder.
longislandguido 7mo ago
> When a user mode application on the Mac doesn't just allow you to drag the app into the applications folder to install, it's a red huge red flag But a lot of Apple first-party applications require installation. Packages for me and not for thee. As do Chrome/Edge/Teams/Etc It's 2026 and Apple still doesn't have an equivalent to MSI + the Add/Remove Programs control panel Windows has had for 30+ years. Windows always saves a copy of the uninstaller package stub so if you trash the media you can always nope out (usually—unless the developer went out of his way to break it). And no, the App Store is not a fix-all for this.
sneak 7mo ago
This application is a custom one to use custom features on specialized hardware. There are zero alternatives.

everdrive 7mo ago

>When a user mode application on the Mac doesn't just allow you to drag the app into the applications folder to install, it's a red huge red flag. And the companies that make such products _never_ care about making sure an uninstallation is actually clean.

ryandrake 7mo ago
"Does it have a way to uninstall, and does that uninstallation clean every application artifact?" is such a great litmus test for just how much a software company actually cares about having a proper finished product that respects the user. Nobody forces a company to do it, but when they don't do it, you can probably bet that they're cutting corners and disrespecting the user's machine in other ways, too. It's like "Do you return your shopping cart to the cart storage or leave it in the carpark?" You're allowed to just shove your cart away and drive off, but people who do that are highly probably assholes in other ways, too.
- GeekyBear 7mo ago
  Well said. I would add an appreciation for companies producing non-bloated, native software.
al_borland 7mo ago
In the file menu of the installer, there is generally an option to see all the files it is placing on the system with full system paths. I generally note this down so I can make sure to clean things up completely if/when needed. For app that just get dragged into the Applications folder, they end up doing all this additional file creation on first-launch instead of via an installer. That actually makes it harder. For those I tend to search the ~/Library folder for the name of the app and the company that made it, hoping I find all the remnants to delete. There are apps, like AppZapper and AppCleaner, which try to automate this process. I still think it’s ridiculous that Apple never solved for this. It’s one of the reasons I always do a manual migration to a new Mac. It feels like the only real way to clean things up.
- xp84 7mo ago
  I'll have to check that installer trick the next time I use one. Isn't the "Receipts" folder that so angered OP kind of that same thing? I thought those included the list of files installed. In general, I think some worries about removing "every trace" are overblown, though. The receipts, for instance, are inert and they're not filling up the disk or consuming RAM. Of all the things Apple does in the name of "security" it's funny to me that they've never even tried to build uninstallation functionality. Even though a majority of apps with "Installers" use, not arbitrary installer executables like Windows, but .pkg files that open with Apple's "Installer" app. That means it's Apple's code placing most of those files in place, and even if the install includes a "script" portion, it seems like a solvable problem that Installer.app could monitor the files being added or changed by the script process, to at least let you view a log of what happened if not reverse the changes.
  - prerok 7mo ago
    There are two cases: I am uninstalling because I never want to use the app, or I am uninstalling because I know I currently don't need the app and will reinstall after 6 months when I do. An example of first is a trial of an app but you don't like it in the end, an example of the latter is a game that you might want to play with the same settings later. Now, I want the option. In the first case I don't want these inert files taking up disk space and in the second I want to have those files.
    - al_borland 7mo ago
      I stopped trying new apps as often, because I don't like how I can never really go back to a state before it was installed, unless the developer actually put effort into not spraying files everything and not leaving a trace once gone. I appreciate these developers very much, and am more likely to keep using their apps. The most junk an app install puts on my system, the more likely I am to want it gone.
  - gopher_space 7mo ago
    > In general, I think some worries about removing "every trace" are overblown, though. It's impossible to overstate how little I want random crap on my machine.
eviks 7mo ago
Almost never, indeed, so you need some 3rd party trash utilities with databases and heuristics. Though that's also on the gardener and his bad OS design where forced compartmentalization is's trivial, the weeds will never want to root themselves out!

vbezhenar 7mo ago

Mac apps often do various things on your computer. Just because you dragged it to Bin, doesn't mean there are no leftovers on your computer. I'd prefer proper uninstaller any day.

GeekyBear 7mo ago
Are you under the impression that Windows uninstallers don't leave files and registry settings behind?
- PearlRiver 7mo ago
  I use this https://github.com/Klocman/Bulk-Crap-Uninstaller https://github.com/Klocman/Bulk-Crap-Uninstaller The nice thing about Windows is that people have been writing software for it for decades. A very underestimated advantage.
  - GeekyBear 7mo ago
    > The nice thing about Windows is that people have been writing software for it for decades. A very underestimated advantage. AppZapper has been doing the same thing on Macs for decades. https://www.wikipedia.org/wiki/AppZapper https://www.wikipedia.org/wiki/AppZapper
  - SpaceNugget 7mo ago
    Sorry an advantage over what? What desktop operating system in common use _hasn't_ had decades of development of pet projects on obvious problems like system cleanup? Literally every operating system has these kinds of things
  - jimmaswell 7mo ago
    The Macintosh came first, technically.
- vbezhenar 7mo ago
  They certainly can clean everything after them. And I'm pretty sure that many of them do. When macOS user drags application folder to the Bin, application does not have a chance to clean after itself. Just because some Windows uninstaller are bad doesn't mean that all of them are bad, or that uninstaller concept is bad. Now I'd welcome for operating system to be built in a way to let user to delete everything related to the application. Maybe android or ios are built this way, but not macos.

post-it 7mo ago

I started developing for my Mac a few weeks ago and I'm blown away by how easy it is to make an app that feels Mac native and includes quality of life features like CloudKit sync across all your devices. It's become clear that most companies don't give the tiniest shit about any of that.

xp84 7mo ago
It's obvious why they wouldn't give a shit about that, though - the Mac is not their main focus. Most companies that make software for PCs are obliged to make at least Windows and Mac versions, and to build an application "The Apple Way," using SwiftUI, and things like "CloudKit" etc. would mean a whole dedicated Mac-experienced design team and Mac-experienced engineering team. This would result in an app that fundamentally works and behaves differently than their app would on Windows, because these operating systems have different conventions and standards. Now, that would make people like you and me very happy -- but consider it from the big company's perspective. Now instead of supporting a piece of software which has a single set of features and a single consistent (and 'braaanded,' eyeroll) Electron UI (and, mostly, a single set of bugs), you're supporting two completely different apps with completely different UIs. Building a new Important Feature means building it from the ground up twice, and QAing it twice. And customer service needs to be trained to walk customers through both of these different apps which work differently, and some of the customers are so confused, they can't even tell you if they're on a Mac or not. 25 years ago, before cross-platform frameworks existed (other than Java, which wasn't often used to these ends then), that was sort of how they had to do these things, and in practice, the results were either that a ton of hardware shipped with no Mac support whatsoever (wasn't worth it) or with a bare-bones Mac version on the CD that was incredibly low-effort, and clearly still written by people who barely knew how the Mac was meant to work. This very real phenomenon is why we are cursed with cross-platform everything. The difference between a single cross-platform codebase and even two dedicated good-citizen apps is a vast chasm.
- asdff 7mo ago
  >This would result in an app that fundamentally works and behaves differently than their app would on Windows, because these operating systems have different conventions and standards. Not always the case. Sometimes the gui app is just wrapping some script written in a general purpose language. Button just calls a function. Yes writing the function to draw the ui button element might take a different syntax, but they might go on to run the same underlying function. At least that is how I like to write my gui software.

Aurornis 7mo ago

> When a user mode application on the Mac doesn't just allow you to drag the app into the applications folder to install, it's a red huge red flag. The applications you drag to the Apps folder can do the same things when you run them the first time. Being able to drag into the Apps folder doesn’t mean it won’t do things outside of that folder.

longislandguido 7mo ago

> When a user mode application on the Mac doesn't just allow you to drag the app into the applications folder to install, it's a red huge red flag But a lot of Apple first-party applications require installation. Packages for me and not for thee. As do Chrome/Edge/Teams/Etc It's 2026 and Apple still doesn't have an equivalent to MSI + the Add/Remove Programs control panel Windows has had for 30+ years. Windows always saves a copy of the uninstaller package stub so if you trash the media you can always nope out (usually—unless the developer went out of his way to break it). And no, the App Store is not a fix-all for this.

sneak 7mo ago

This application is a custom one to use custom features on specialized hardware. There are zero alternatives.