appsweep appears not to work

Sorry for the delay.

It happens with several apps, but the most recent of which being DEVONthink Pro. It has not only left some applescript files (as well as its place within the menubar), but also a few folders.

I'm not sure if debugging would be helpful now that the software is uninstalled though...

Let me know if I can be of any more assistance

Thanks for the update. Testing it out, it looks like DEVONthink Pro installs a lot of scripts. It may be tricky correlating these back to DEVONthink. The other leading app uninstaller doesn't seem to fare any better with it.

You have to understand that this whole app uninstalling thing is an inexact science. Apps can throw files anywhere and being able to tell which app did what after the fact ends up being guesswork based on common patterns. For instance, most apps are well-behaved enough to put their preferences in Library/Preferences and to use their identifier in the name of the file. But there are some patterns that are either non-standard or hard to detect. You can try and monitor all files an app touches (I believe one of the uninstallers does this) but there is the danger of a lot of false positives (i.e. it trying to uninstall files you created yourself using that app). The trick is to find the right balance, probably erring towards leaving a bit more schmutz on your drive instead of deleting the wrong file.

I'll look into improving the algorithm to see if I can catch these cases but keep in mind it will always be somewhat inexact given the nature of the problem. Thanks for the report.

Thanks for the informative reply!

I'm fairly new to uninstalling on the Mac, so do you have any tips on monitoring all files than an app touches (I'd rather use Hazel only and not another program)? Besides the actual .app file and files within library/preferences, are there any other general places to look (besides doing a sweep of every system file)?

I understand that it's not an exact science. But, since Hazel runs in the background, would it be possible to have Hazel monitor every installation and changes an app makes so that it can reverse it all during an uninstall?

On a side note, I deleted "cha-ching" a week or two ago, but I sometimes randomly receive Growl alerts that Hazel cannot delete it for some reason.

Thanks

Not something you'd use all the time and you need to know how to use the command-line, but there is the fs_usage command. You need root/admin privileges to run it but it shows you all filesystem activity. You can have it filter by program.

Having Hazel monitor everything may be a bit much. First off, it would probably require admin/root privileges which is not something I want to require. Also, the possible resource drain (running fs_usage, you can see how much data must be sifted through). But, I think the main problem is that while you see every file an app creates, you don't know for what purpose. It's unclear whether you can really differentiate between files the app creates for it's own internal storage and files the user creates using that app. For instance, if you are using an image editor and create a JPG file, that's not a file you would want the uninstaller to remove but it will be recorded as a file created by that app. The chance of a false positive goes up using this type of approach.

As for the problem removing Cha-Ching, check the logs. You can view them via the "Check Log" button in the "Info" section. See if there is a more descriptive error. My guess is it's a permissions problem. Post here or email me if you can't figure it out.

Cha-Ching may still be in the trash, and hazel cannot delete it. I sometimes get those messages when it's trying to clear the trash. I'm not sure if it's because the file still thinks it's in use, or if Hazel doesn't have sufficient privileges. Manually emptying the trash usually resolves it.

That's a possibility. Usually there's a message in the log when a file is busy and being skipped over so check for those. If you don't see those messages, then it's possible it's something else in which case let me know if you want me to investigate it more closely.