How to Remove MacTeX 2018, Which Steps You Need to Do
Today I
am mainly about to solve a problem: How can people remove all apps in MacTeX 2018? Read the question distribution bellow:
"I now want to uninstall MacTeX 2018. Can please someone tell me how I can cleanly uninstall MacTeX. I know I don't have to, but if possible I would like to. Once I have done that, I will reinstall the full MacTeX.
Any help will be greatly appreciated."
Hi, everybody, it's been a while I haven't seen you in my blog! As you know, I haven't updated the blog for couple of months due to the busy work, but now, today I'd like to renew my blog with a new tutorial of macOS to help those stuck in the removal of MacTeX 2018, therefore, to truly get rid of any apps related with MacTeX on Mac OS X.
What is MacTeX
MacTeX is a product produced by the MacTeX TeXnical working group of the TeX Users Group (TUG). It is the Macintosh component of the TeX Collection DVD, the reference edition of TeX distributed by TeX User Groups across the world. The reference edition runs on Mac OS X, Windows, GNU/Linux, various BSD Unix systems, and most other computer architectures.
In addition, there are five apps include LaTeXit, BibDesk, Excalibur, Tex Live Utility, and TeXShop in MacTeX, when I installed & tested how to remove MacTeX, that means you need to remove them all in one time if you want to uninstall MacTeX
Reasons to uninstall MacTeX
There are two reasons users want to uninstall. Some casual users see TeX on the web, download it to experiment, decide that the program is not their cup of tea, and want to get rid of it. Other users have MacTeX-2017 or another earlier distribution, upgrade to the latest version, and want to reclaim space by erasing the old distribution.
Why it so difficult to remove
During the test, I found that MacTeX has LaTeXit, BibDesk, Excalibur, Tex Live Utility, and TeXShop in total, what's more, it is 3 GB and required 5.99 GB space to install, meaning it takes a lot of space to install in your Mac. It might cost trouble due to the numerous attachments and residues when you need to remove it.
Traditional way to remove MacTeX
Firstly, let's try manual way to remove MacTeX, follow the instruction bellow:
1. Quit MacTeX (target items) before removal
2. Remove MacTeX from Application folder
3. Delete leftover in Library folder
In this part, take care to delete the leftover in Library:
- Launch Finder;
- Scroll cursor to Go, near the Apple icon from the Menu Bar > click Go to Folder...
- Type ~/Library in the Go to Folder box and hit Enter key to open it up;
- Next type the key word LaTeXit, BibDesk, Excalibur, Tex Live Utility, and TeXShop in the search box;
- Select "Library"
- Then right click all the target items in the list to Move to Trash;
- Also take care and check these folders to remove MacTeX:
- /Library/C
- /Library/Application Support/;
- /Library/ Preferences/
- /Library/Caches
- /Library/Logs
- /Library/Cookies
- /Macintosh HD/ MacTeX
Warning: Do not delete the wrong item in Library or it will cause damage in your system.
New (easier) way to remove MacTeX
If the traditional way cannot solve the problem, or you are tired to do so many steps to remove MacTeX, then, I certainly recommend to use the new tool for easily & quickly remove MacTeX 2018 without anything left behind.
It only needs three steps to completely remove a software:
Step 1. Launch it and select one app of MacTeX, such as LaTeXit first in the list, easily click on the green button "Run Analysis";
Step 2. Then, the uninstaller will analysis the target app as fast as you think, a few seconds later, click the button Complete Uninstall when all the related folders and flies appeared in the list;
Step 3. The tool will easily delete all the related folders and flies scanned in Step 2, now back to Step 1, LaTeXit are gone from the list.
Continue to remove other apps BibDesk, Excalibur, Tex Live Utility, and TeXShop in MacTeX in the list with above three steps.
More information to totally remove MacTeX 2018, you can check this story with detailed steps and screenshots:
Totally Remove MacTeX with all Component apps by Osx Uninstaller
See you in next one.