Applications: what every app really takes up, and what starts at login

Every app, with what it keeps elsewhere

An app's own size is often the small part. Its caches, settings and data live in your Library, sometimes many times larger. Applications adds them up. The list shows every app with its total, filtered by name if you type, with a badge for App Store apps and an Apple logo for Apple's own apps.

Select an app and the inspector shows three numbers: App, Support files and Total. In the screenshot, the selected app is 663 MB on its own and 15.4 GB in total, because it keeps 14.7 GB of support files in seven places. Under Files … keeps elsewhere, each one is listed with its location and size: Application Support, Caches, Containers, Group Containers, Preferences, Logs, Saved Application State, HTTP Storage, WebKit Data and Launch Agents, plus Application Support, Caches, Preferences, Logs, Launch Agents and Launch Daemons in /Library, marked "(all users)".

While an app is running, the inspector also charts its CPU and memory, measured once a second while the page is open. It's there to show what an app is doing, not to tune your Mac.

Uninstalling an app

Dragging an app to the Trash is the macOS way, and it's fine for most apps. It leaves the app's support files behind. The guide to uninstalling apps on a Mac completely shows where to find them by hand.

In MacClearings, select the app and click Uninstall…. It stages the app and every support file that's still checked, then opens the review list. Launch agents start unchecked so background helpers aren't removed by surprise. You can uncheck anything else you want to keep, such as a folder of documents an app stores in Application Support.

Uninstall… is unavailable, with the reason shown, when:

• it's an Apple app, whether it came with macOS or from the App Store, like Xcode ("comes with macOS and is protected"),
• the app is running ("is open. Quit it first, then uninstall."), or
• the app is somewhere MacClearings protects.

Anything inside an app bundle can't be staged on its own; apps can only be moved whole. When you confirm, the app and its files go to the Trash together as one cleanup, and Undo in History puts them all back while they're still there.

Leftovers

The Leftovers tab lists support files from apps that aren't installed anymore, largest first, with where each is and which app identifier it matched. Check that you don't still use something before you stage it: an app you reinstall later may want its old settings back. Select rows and click Add to Cleanup, then review as usual. The guide to Library caches explains the folders these usually come from.

Login items

System Settings, then General, then Login Items & Extensions

macOS lists apps that open at login and items allowed to run in the background in System Settings. To change which apps open when you log in, use that pane.

MacClearings' Login Items tab shows the launchd jobs behind many background items, read from three folders:

Apple's own items are left out. Each row shows the program it runs and whether it runs at login or stays running. The switch on your own items runs launchctl disable or launchctl enable, which takes effect from your next login. MacClearings never edits or removes the plist files, so nothing is lost and switching an item back on restores it. For system-wide items, a lock explains that they're changed in System Settings.

Updates

The Updates tab compares each third-party app's version with its own update feed. It only goes online when you open the tab, and nothing is downloaded or installed: it tells you which apps have an update and lets you open them to install it. App Store apps link to the App Store. This, MacClearings' own updates and license activation are the only times it uses the network.