Friday Software Spotlight - AppZapper
posted in Software |
Welcome to the first installment of Applemorphic’s Friday Software Spotlight, a weekly review of one or more Mac OS X applications old and new. This edition will be short, both to simply whet your appetites, and because this week’s application doesn’t need more.
First up: AppZapper, a nifty utility from Austin Sarner and Brian Ball that eases and completes the Mac OS X uninstall process. From the product website, AppZapper makes the uninstall process as easy as Apple’s install process: simply drag an application to the AppZapper window, confirm the deletion, and you’re done. Here’s what I like about AppZapper:
1. Getting it, installing it, and using it are a piece of cake. The product site is very simple and easy to use. The file is small (1.6 mb) and downloads quickly. Installation uses the familiar .dmg file, the license agreement pops immediately after download, and a Finder window opens with the AppZapper and an alias of your Applications Folder. Drag-and-drop indeed.
2. The application itself is also small (3.9 mb), and has a very cool, fun icon. It launches quickly, and gives you a few test zaps before requiring you to pay the $12.95 license fee, which includes free lifetime updates.
3. You truly do simply drag-and-drop apps to the AZ window to delete them, but it asks you to confirm deletion of the application and all the related files it found. What I was not able to determine during my limited use was if it truly gets all the files it should for each application. For example, does it also delete files installed in Application Support, such as the license files for Omni software (not that I’d want to delete my Omni applications!)? This confirmation is key, as it prevents you from accidentally deleting something you’d rather keep. And the button doesn’t say delete or trash, it says Zap: a cool branding decision that is still descriptive of the action and intuitive.
4. AppZapper’s general preferences window also allows you to specify safe applications, that is, any that you don’t want to zap, even if you drag them to the AppZapper window. This is another good safeguard against accidental deletion of important applications.
AppZapper is a simple, small, and effective application that makes uninstalling applications AND their related files as easy as installing them. I try a lot of software, oftening deciding not to keep it. My Library folder is full of Preferences and other files from these since deleted applications. I wish I’d found AppZapper much sooner.
(What happens when you try to zap AppZapper? As long as the “Keep launched applications safe” box is unchecked in General Preferences, AppZapper correctly lists all the related files and allows you to zap them. Look in the trash, and there are the files, including the application. But AppZapper appears to still be in the Applications folder. After emptying trash, however, it disappears. So, AppZapper can zap itself.)
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