Uninstall pkg manually in OS X

Uninstall-pkg.md

Mac Uninstall pkg Manually

• using pkgutil

# list all your installed packages
pkgutil --pkgs

# show your package info
pkgutil --pkg-info <your-package-id>

# list your package files
pkgutil --files <your-package-id>

# change to the directory which your package is installed into
cd /
# remote files
pkgutil --only-files --files <your-package-id> | tr '\n' '\0' | xargs -n 1 -0 sudo rm -if
# remote directories
pkgutil --only-dirs --files <your-package-id> | tail -r | tr '\n' '\0' | xargs -n 1 -0 sudo rmdir

Reference

• How do I uninstall any Apple pkg Package file?

How does rm -if make sense? This rm man page says that -i means "prompt before every removal", but -f means "never prompt"! Moreover, prompting is useless since stdin is coming from a /dev/null thanks to xargs. Right?

Note also that pkgutil --files can output names of important directories shared with other programs, e.g. usr. That's OK if you use rmdir as this script does, because it won't remove empty directories. But if you modify the commands, e.g. to use rm -r, be very careful.

You might want to finally clean up with

sudo pkgutil --forget <your-package-id>

Hi, is it a typo in your comments "# remote files" (that should be "# remove files", same for directories?

If it is not a mistake - why the word "remote" and what does it mean in this context?

rm -if => rm -rf
rmdir => rm -rf

Much simpler.

@uhlhosting

rm -if => rm -rf
rmdir => rm -rf

Much simpler.

only if you potentially want to brick your machine. pkg files can include files to be installed even to /System in which case /System will be listed and you'd try to rm -rf that too.