Uninstaller

Remove an app together with the support files, caches, preferences and logs it left around your Mac, after you've seen every item on a list.

Open it on an app

There are two ways in:

• Type uninstall, a space and the app's name, for example uninstall spotify. The best three matches show as Uninstall Spotify rows. Press ↵ on one.
• Select any app in the bar, press ⌘K and pick Uninstall….

Saiki then scans for the app's files. On a big app this takes a few seconds; the list appears when the scan is done, and folder sizes fill in as they're measured.

The list

The app itself comes first, then everything it left, sorted by kind: support files, caches, preferences, containers, logs and saved state. Each row shows the item's name, the folder it's in, its size and a checkbox. The line above the list counts what's selected, for example "5 of 7 files selected · 1.2 GB".

• Checked to start with: items Saiki matched for certain, by the app's identifier.
• Unchecked to start with: items matched only by name, marked matched by name. Look at the folder before you tick one.
• Command-line tool: a link in a folder like /usr/local/bin or /opt/homebrew/bin that points into the app.
• administrator: an item only an administrator can move, such as an app installed in /Applications by another account. Finder asks for your password when it moves it.
• Locked rows can't be selected. The reason is one of: part of macOS, locked in Finder (clear it in Get Info), or needs Full Disk Access to include.

If another copy of the same app is installed (say a second copy in another folder), the data both copies use isn't listed, and a line under the summary says which copy uses it.

Keys

Uninstall

1. Check what you want gone, then press ⌘↵.
2. The card says how many items go and their total size, and whether Finder will ask for a password or the app has to quit first. Press ⌘↵ to go ahead, or esc to go back to the list.
3. If the app is running, Saiki quits it (and any app inside it) and waits up to five seconds. If it doesn't quit, nothing is moved and Saiki tells you to quit it yourself.
4. Everything selected goes to the Trash. A message says how many items moved and how much space they take, and names any item that was kept and why. Press ⌘Z (Undo Uninstall) there to put everything back.

When the app itself goes, Saiki also forgets what it kept about it: its alias, hotkey, hidden state and ranking.

The first time an administrator-only item goes, macOS may ask whether Saiki may control Finder. Allow it, or those items stay.

Put it back

Type undo uninstall and press ↵ on Undo Uninstall. The last uninstall comes back from the Trash to where each item was, the app first. Saiki remembers your last ten uninstalls, and Undo takes the newest one that still has items in the Trash. An item whose old place is now taken by something new stays in the Trash. The command only shows while there's something to put back.

What it never removes

Some apps are refused before the scan, with the reason:

• Apps that are part of macOS.
• Apps that ship inside another app, which needs them.
• Apps that share their identity with macOS or other apps, so their data can't be told apart.
• A link to an app kept somewhere else, anything that isn't an app, and an app that doesn't say which app it is.
• Saiki itself.

Every item also passes the same last check as the Cleaner right before it moves. An item is kept if:

• it changed since the scan, or it's already gone;
• a folder above it is a link;
• it's a home folder, a top-level drive folder such as /Applications or /Library, a standard folder like Documents or ~/Library/Caches itself, or Git history;
• it's on a read-only volume or a mounted disk.

Standard Library folders never count as an app's, even when the names match, and a beta or other version of the app that's still installed keeps its own files.

Settings

The Uninstaller's switch is on Settings → Applications, in the Uninstaller card. Turned off, the uninstall rows, Uninstall… in ⌘K and Undo Uninstall all leave the bar.