In theory, uninstalling applications in Mac OS X should be as simple as a drag-and-drop to the Trash. Unfortunately, the reality is that some application components, like preferences and other support files, may get left behind to take up unnecessary hard drive space. AppZapper's goal is to help you root out and remove applications and their associated files for you.

Installation involved a simple drag-and-drop into my Applications folder, and with a double-click I was up and running. My first concern was that AppZapper could potentially remove Mac OS X-installed applications with without my knowledge, but by default it keeps those apps safe. Even so, applications that you choose to remove are not deleted until you say so. Instead, they get moved to the Trash so that you can review what has been removed and decide if there is something you really want to keep, or go ahead and delete the files.

AppZapper gives you an organized list of installed applications.

There are a couple of ways to select applications for removal. First, you can drag an application or a group of applications onto the AppZapper window, and then select which components should not be removed. Second, the QuickZap feature lets you choose files from common types like Preference Panes, widgets, Screen Savers, and iPod updaters. Finally, ZapGenie builds a catalog of every application installed on your Mac. ZapGenie also lets you sort by name or last time used so you can easily see what applications you aren't using anymore.

Each of the options worked fine for me, although it took several minutes for AppZapper to find all of the applications on my 1.67GHz PowerBook G4. To be fair, I have a long list of apps on my hard drive that should have been removed long ago. And when I say "lots," I mean gigabytes worth of applications.

Removed applications end up in your Trash.

AppZapper also lets you add applications to a safe list so that they can't accidentally be removed. You'll find that feature in the app's preferences, and you can add to the list by simply dragging applications into the list.

The Bottom Line
AppZapper is a simple to use application, and it takes the guess work out of finding all of the support files associated with the applications you want to remove from your hard drive. But be careful: Since some support files are used by multiple applications (the Adobe Creative Suite is a good example), there is a slim chance you could accidentally delete support files you need.