1. Mac Remove App From Launchpad

Launchpad only allows you to remove apps downloaded from the Mac App Store. This means that the “X” button will only appear next to apps downloaded from the App Store. If you want to remove an app downloaded from a developer’s site, we recommend using the automatic removal method.

Use Launchpad to delete an app

Launchpad offers a convenient way to delete apps that were downloaded from the App Store.

1. To open Launchpad, click it in the Dock or open it from your Applications folder. You can also pinch closed with your thumb and three fingers on your trackpad.
2. If you don't see the app in Launchpad, type its name in the search field at the top of the screen. Or swipe right or left with two fingers on your trackpad to show the next or previous page.
   
3. Press and hold the Option (⌥) key, or click and hold any app until the apps jiggle.
4. Click next to the app that you want to delete, then click Delete to confirm. The app is deleted immediately. Apps that don't show either didn't come from the App Store or are required by your Mac. To delete an app that didn't come from the App Store, use the Finder instead.

Deleting an app doesn't cancel any subscription you may have purchased with that app. Learn how to cancel subscriptions for apps that were downloaded from the App Store.

Use the Finder to delete an app

1. Locate the app in the Finder. Most apps are in your Applications folder, which you can open by clicking Applications in the sidebar of any Finder window. Or use Spotlight to find the app, then press and hold the Command (⌘) key while double-clicking the app in Spotlight.
2. Drag the app to the Trash, or select the app and choose File > Move to Trash.
   
3. If you're asked for a user name and password, enter the name and password of an administrator account on your Mac. This is probably the name and password you use to log in to your Mac.
4. To delete the app, choose Finder > Empty Trash.
   

Learn more

To use an app again after deleting it, either reinstall it or restore it from a backup.

• To reinstall apps that were installed as part of macOS, reinstall macOS. This applies to apps such as Safari, iTunes, Books, Messages, Mail, Calendar, Photos, and FaceTime.
• You can also redownload apps, music, movies, TV shows, and books that were installed from the App Store, iTunes Store, or Apple Books.

Learn how to delete apps on your iPhone, iPad, and iPod touch.

Learn what to do if the Dock contains an icon with a question mark.

It is famously easier to delete an app on a Mac than on a PC, but there are different ways to do it, and there are still problems to watch out for. Plus there's the curious case of the apps you can never delete.

You can declutter your Mac, but sometimes you just want to delete apps. In which case, drag an app to the Trash, then choose Empty Trash, and you're done.

It would be great if that were all it took to delete an app on an iMac — and it so very nearly is. The majority of the time, it truly is all that you absolutely have to do. Tomtom xl live 310.

The way Mac applications work means that it's common for them to be one single file or maybe one single folder in Applications. Simply dragging them to the trash will get rid of them.

Just, not for all apps, and even apps that will go gentle into that good night tend to leave bits behind. Typically it's just some settings files within your Mac's Library and they take up little space. If you're deleting to reclaim all the space you can, though, this adds up — and you need third-party apps to get rid of them.

Before you install an app to help you with deleting apps, though, here are the two main ways to delete anything.

1. Quit the app
2. Find it in the Finder and click once to select it
3. Drag it from Applications to the Trash, or
4. Press Command-Delete, or
5. Choose File, Move to Trash
6. Choose Finder, Empty Trash, or
7. Right click on the Trash and choose Empty Trash
8. If prompted, confirm you're sure you want to empty the Trash
9. Restart your Mac

You may get error messages when you try to delete a running app, but with certain exceptions detailed below, you can always confirm you want to delete them. Depending on the app, you may be asked for a username and password, or prompted to confirm on your Apple Watch.

1. Quit the app if it's running
2. Open Launchpad by clicking on it in the Dock, or
3. Open it by clicking on Launchpad in Applications, or
4. Pinch thumb and fingers together on trackpad, or
5. Use Spotlight to open Launchpad
6. Swipe to the application you want
7. Click and hold on any app until they all jiggle, or
8. Hold down the Option key
9. If the app gets an X in a white button, click on that
10. Confirm you want to delete it

This is the much more visual way of deleting apps, and it's the one that may be immediately familiar if you're used to using iOS. However, it doesn't let you delete every app.

In fact, in our testing, it lets you delete very few. The only major applications you can definitely delete this way are those made by Apple, such as Pages, Numbers, or Keynote.

Mac Remove App From Launchpad

Many smaller utility-style applications can be deleted this way too, but you can't get rid of Chrome, any Adobe Creative Cloud apps, or Zoom. For those, and the majority of apps, you need to do it manually via moving them to the Trash.

No matter what method you use, you can't delete certain apps from the Mac — and some of them are surprising. Chess, for instance, will just ignore any attempt to delete it. You may not even have realized that your Mac comes with a Chess game, but it's holding onto it forever.

In previous versions of macOS, when you tried to delete Chess, you would get an error message saying that it was required for the system. That's no longer the case as macOS Catalina just won't let you delete it.

There is arguably a way around it if you disabled security features such as System Integrity Protection, but if you do that because you read it here, and it goes wrong, we'll deny everything.

It's a good idea to restart your Mac. It's also, though, a very good idea to have a third-party utility such as Hazel.

Hazel is one of those Mac utilities that do very many things. But one of them is that when you delete an app, it tells you what other files are being left behind — and offers to delete them for you.

That's particularly good because you can see what's going to be deleted. There are disk space-saving apps that may remove this kind of file, but you won't know they've done it.

This isn't likely to be a problem but one type of file that gets left on your Mac is often a preferences one. If you reinstall the app later, it should pick up that preferences file and be configured the way you want.

If it is that you just need the space now and will want to reinstall the app later, you can save time and effort by dragging that app to another disk. For instance, if you have an external drive connected to your Mac, you can drag an app straight from there to that other SSD.

What's more, you can run the app from there, too. So if your Applications folder is taking up a lot of space on your Mac, you can split it. It's still best to have your most-used apps on your Mac's drive, but most apps will launch from any connected drive.

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