Find the apps you never use on a Mac and remove them

26 September 2026 · 7 min read

To find unused apps on a Mac, open the Applications folder in Finder, switch to list view, add the Date Last Opened column and sort by it. The apps at the bottom of that list, or with no date at all, are your candidates. Treat the dates as a hint rather than proof, check licenses and subscriptions before anything goes, and remove the leftovers along with the app.

Sort the Applications folder by last opened

1. In Finder, choose Go, Applications (Shift-Command-A).
2. Choose View, as List (Command-2).
3. Choose View, Show View Options (Command-J). Tick Date Last Opened and Size, and tick Calculate all sizes so every app shows how much room it takes.
4. Click the Date Last Opened column header to sort. Click it again to reverse the order.

Now look at the oldest end. An app last opened three years ago that takes several gigabytes is an easy decision. One last opened three months ago is probably seasonal, like tax software.

Check a second place too. Some apps install into an Applications folder inside your home folder instead, and web apps you save from Safari with File, Add to Dock land there as well. In Finder, choose Go, Home, and open Applications if it exists.

What the dates do not tell you

The Date Last Opened column comes from Spotlight’s metadata, and it is patchier than it looks. On one Mac we checked, most apps had no date recorded at all. A blank is not evidence that an app is unused, and a few situations reliably produce misleading dates:

• Apps that update themselves. An update often replaces the app bundle, and the new copy can start with no date.
• Apps that start at login. Menu bar apps, sync clients and utilities that open automatically at login may never be “opened” by you, yet they run every day. Check System Settings, General, Login Items & Extensions (plain Login Items on Sonoma and earlier). Anything under Open at Login or Allow in the Background is in use.
• Companion software. Printer and scanner utilities, audio interface drivers, keyboard and mouse software, VPN clients and backup agents do their work without you opening them. Removing one can quietly break the hardware or service it supports.

If you prefer a list you can read in one go, Terminal gives you the raw dates:

for app in /Applications/*.app; do
  printf '%s\t%s\n' "$(mdls -name kMDItemLastUsedDate -raw "$app")" "${app##*/}"
done | sort

Each line shows a date and an app name, oldest first. Apps with no recorded date print (null) and sort to the top. Nothing is changed; mdls only reads.

Check what each one costs in space

System Settings, General, Storage shows a bar across the top and categories below it. Click the info button next to Applications to get a list of apps with their sizes, which you can sort to put the largest first. Depending on your macOS version, the list may also show when each app was last accessed, with the same caveats as above.

Size is the other half of the decision. A utility you use twice a year costs almost nothing to keep. A creative suite you tried once is worth a proper look, along with the sound libraries and templates such apps download after installation.

Find the apps that will stop working anyway

Some unused apps are also apps that no longer fit your Mac. Hold Option, open the Apple menu and choose System Information, then select Applications under Software in the sidebar. The list has a Kind column:

• Apple Silicon or Universal: native on current Macs.
• Intel: runs on an Apple silicon Mac through Rosetta translation. These are the apps most likely to have been abandoned by their developers, and a good prompt to ask whether you still need them.

The same window’s Obtained from column shows whether each app came from the App Store, from Apple, or from an identified developer, which matters in the next step.

Before you delete: licenses, subscriptions and data

Deleting an app is easy to undo only if you can get it back. Check four things first.

1. Subscriptions. Removing an app does not cancel what you pay for it. App Store subscriptions are listed in System Settings under your name, Media & Purchases, Subscriptions. Anything bought directly from a developer is canceled on their website.
2. License keys. For apps bought outside the App Store, find the license email before the app goes. Some apps limit how many Macs can be activated; if yours has a Deactivate or Sign Out option, use it first so the seat is freed. Transferring apps to a new Mac when you have lost the licenses covers tracking down old purchases.
3. Data kept inside the app. Documents you saved to Documents or Desktop stay put when an app is deleted. But some apps keep their only copy of your work in their own library folder: a notes app, a project database, a set of presets you built. Export anything you might want.
4. Apple’s own apps. GarageBand, iMovie, Pages, Numbers and Keynote can be deleted and downloaded again from the App Store at no charge. Apps that are part of macOS itself, such as Safari and Mail, live in a protected system folder and cannot be removed.

App Store purchases can be downloaded again from the Purchased section of the App Store, signed in with the same Apple Account.

Remove them properly

Dragging an app to the Trash removes the app itself and leaves behind its settings, caches and support files in your Library folder. For most apps that is a few megabytes; for some it is gigabytes. If the app came with its own uninstaller, which is common for anything that installs a driver or a system extension, use that first. Uninstall an app on a Mac completely lists the folders worth checking by hand.

If you would rather see it done for you, Crumb has an Uninstall tool that removes an app along with every leftover. You can also point Ask Crumb at an app or a folder you do not recognize: it explains what the item is, whether it regenerates, and what breaks if it is gone, then proposes a plan, and nothing is deleted until you approve it. The whole-Mac audit is free and read-only; Uninstall and Ask Crumb are part of the $9 one-time unlock.

Go slowly with the uncertain ones: move them to a folder on the Desktop for a month, and delete it once nothing has complained.

Questions

Is it safe to delete apps I never use? Yes, for apps you installed yourself, once you have checked they are not drivers or login items and that your data does not live inside them. macOS will not let you remove the apps it depends on.

Does deleting an app delete the files I made with it? No. Documents saved in your own folders stay. What goes are the app’s settings and anything it kept in its own library folders.

Why does an app show no Date Last Opened? Spotlight did not record one. That happens after updates, for apps launched at login, and for apps opened in ways Spotlight does not track. It does not mean the app has never run.

Can I get an App Store app back after deleting it? Yes. Open the App Store, go to the Purchased section of your account and download it again at no charge.