Uninstall packages in Mac OS X

Question

How can you completely uninstall (remove files that belong to a certain package) in Mac OS X? Can this be done using a command in the terminal?

I have installed a .pkg package on my Mac and I am wondering as to how I can uninstall the entire package without using a third party application such as UninstallPKG?

I am wondering whether uninstalling .dmg files also require third party applications or is it possible to uninstall them entering a command in the terminal?

Answer 1

Use this command in terminal for check the list of package and uninstalled your files.

$ pkgutil --pkgs # list all installed packages 

Once you've uninstalled the files, you can remove the receipt with:

$ sudo pkgutil --forget the-package-name.pkg 

After visually inspecting the list of files you can do something like:

$ pkgutil --pkg-info the-package-name.pkg # check the location $ cd / # assuming the package is rooted at /... $ pkgutil --only-files --files the-package-name.pkg | tr '\n' '\0' | xargs -n 1 -0 sudo rm -i 

Be careful of this last step. The list of directories output by pkgutil --files can include important shared directories like usr, which you don't want to remove.

$ pkgutil --only-dirs --files the-package-name.pkg | tr '\n' '\0' | xargs -n 1 -0 sudo rm -ir 

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