This article will show you how to Uninstall default Apple apps on Mac. Safari, Mail, FaceTime, Chess, Photo Booth, Stickies, and QuickTime are all built into MAC. We can’t just move these apps to the Trash. Today, We tried to uninstall the Photobooth app, but it gave us an error saying, “These programs take up room, not just in the Finder window but also on your hard drive. So you should probably get rid of these apps.
But you might want to get rid of Apple’s stock apps. Apple now lets you delete some of the apps that came with your iPhone or iPad. This can help you clean up a bit and get rid of apps you don’t use. This comes with a few small conditions. First of all, apps aren’t really gone from your device when you delete them. Still, you can get rid of them and put them back on the Home screen in the same way you do with other apps.
How to Uninstall default Apple apps on Mac
Even though it says not to, Terminal can be used to get rid of standard apps that are not needed. But first, you should know that Apple has changed its security system System Integrity Protection (SIP) with the release of macOS. It is now illegal to change system items on a Mac.
The SIP limits what the user can do on parts of the Mac operating system that are locked down. So, if you want to get rid of default apps, you need to turn off the Apple System Integrity Protection first.
- Restart your Mac and press Command+R key shortcut while the reboot is in progress.
- You will see an unusual startup window – this is the recovery mode. In the Menu bar click Utilities → Terminal.
- Type in Terminal the next command: csrutil disable
- Press the Return key. You will see that your System Integrity Protection is disabled.
- Restart your Mac.
- Login to your system through your admin account. You can remove default apps only if you have administrator rights. However, if you have already signed into the user account, you can use a special command right in the Terminal to re-login.
- Launch Terminal.
- Mount the “/“ folder to have Read & Write permission. For this, use the following command:
sudo mount -uw /
- Then type another command to show the application directory and press the Return (Enter) key.
- Now you can start deleting applications using Terminal. To remove apps with Terminal, use the command:
sudo rm -rf APPLICATION_NAME
Why are default Apple apps protected from being removed
If you’ve tried to get rid of Safari, Photos, Mail, iTunes, or another regular macOS app, you may have seen this error message saying that you can’t get rid of these apps because macOS needs them. It is against the rules to delete standard programs on a daily basis because removing built-in programs could hurt the system’s ability to work.
You can download Safari or iTunes from the official Apple website, but you can’t get other important apps back. Apple doesn’t let you get rid of its own apps that are important. This rule is very important for people who are just starting out. But if you know a lot about computers and know which of the default apps you can safely get rid of, you can do it through Terminal.