How do applications like AppZapper on OSX locate files used by an application?

Question

AppZapper is an application used on osx to find and remove all files related to an application like cache and preferences.

Does anybody know how to do the same from the terminal in a guaranteed manner or does AppZapper use heuristic to determine application related files.

Answer 1

Most probably by using a mix of:

• the BOM files previously in Library/Receipts now in /private/var/db/receipts (since Snow Leopard I believe).
• automated removed of preferences files associated to the application (as an option at least).
• and some pre-programmed knowledge of specific applications.

Try to use the command line utility lsbom on any of the .bom file in the receipts directory and you should get the list of the files deployed by a specific installer.