Uninstalling default Mac OS X apps, like iCal, iChat

Question

I just want to uninstall some Mac default applications, for example, iCal, FaceTime, iChat and so on.

That's because I do want to recover my free disk space from those things I will never use.

Is there any method to uninstall them? I tried moving them into trash but it didn't work.

Answer 1

Many OS X applications have hooks to others, so there's sort of a dependency. One good example is Mail.app and the calendar.

The application packages are only part of what you see—many of them have underlying frameworks in the /System folder. So, the .app files are probably just the tip of the iceberg and won't really make a drastic impact.^*

The easiest way to save space in OS X is to remove unused languages.

Other tips are mentioned here:

• Freeing space on your Mac OS X startup disk
• MacRumors How to Free up drive space on an MacBook Air

The single most important tip though is to avoid any sort of "cleaning" apps like MacKeeper, CleanMyMac, et cetera.

---

If you want to go for it, you can force-delete application packages by opening up Terminal.app, and then calling something like:

sudo rm -rf /Applications/iChat.app

However, do this at your own risk. Keep a backup and don't complain the day you run into an error :)

_{* For example, Messages.app—the successor to iChat—uses around 26 MB. FaceTime is 5.4 MB.}