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uninstall

IF YOU CANNOT DESIGN A WORKING UNINSTALL STANZA, PLEASE SUBMIT YOUR CASK ANYWAY. The maintainers will help you write an uninstall stanza, just ask!

uninstall pkgutil: Is The Easiest and Most Useful

pkgutil: is the easiest and most useful uninstall directive. See Uninstall Key pkgutil:.

uninstall Is Required for Casks That Install a pkg or installer manual:

For most Casks, uninstall actions are determined automatically, and an explicit uninstall stanza is not needed. However, a Cask which uses the pkg or installer manual: stanzas will not know how to uninstall correctly unless an uninstall stanza is given.

So, while the Cask language does not enforce the requirement, it is much better for end-users if every pkg and installer manual: has a corresponding uninstall.

The uninstall stanza is available for non-pkg Casks, and is useful for a few corner cases. However, the documentation below concerns the typical case of using uninstall to define procedures for a pkg.

There Are Multiple Uninstall Techniques

Since pkg installers can do arbitrary things, different techniques are needed to uninstall in each case. You may need to specify one, or several, of the following key/value pairs as arguments to uninstall.

Summary of Keys

  • early_script: (string or hash) - like script:, but runs early (for special cases, best avoided)
  • launchctl: (string or array) - ids of launchctl jobs to remove
  • quit: (string or array) - bundle ids of running applications to quit
  • signal: (array of arrays) - signal numbers and bundle ids of running applications to send a Unix signal to (used when quit: does not work)
  • login_item: (string or array) - names of login items to remove
  • kext: (string or array) - bundle ids of kexts to unload from the system
  • script: (string or hash) - relative path to an uninstall script to be run via sudo; use hash if args are needed
    • executable: - relative path to an uninstall script to be run via sudo (required for hash form)
    • args: - array of arguments to the uninstall script
    • input: - array of lines of input to be sent to stdin of the script
    • must_succeed: - set to false if the script is allowed to fail
    • sudo: - set to true if the script needs sudo
  • pkgutil: (string, regexp or array of strings and regexps) - strings or regexps matching bundle ids of packages to uninstall using pkgutil
  • delete: (string or array) - single-quoted, absolute paths of files or directory trees to remove. delete: should only be used as a last resort. pkgutil: is strongly preferred.
  • rmdir: (string or array) - single-quoted, absolute paths of directories to remove if empty
  • trash: (string or array) - single-quoted, absolute paths of files or directory trees to move to Trash.

Each uninstall technique is applied according to the order above. The order in which uninstall keys appear in the Cask file is ignored.

For assistance filling in the right values for uninstall keys, there are several helper scripts found under developer/bin in the Homebrew Cask repository. Each of these scripts responds to the -help option with additional documentation.

The easiest way to work out an uninstall stanza is on a system where the pkg is currently installed and operational. To operate on an uninstalled pkg file, see Working With a pkg File Manually, below.

uninstall Key pkgutil:

This is the most useful uninstall key. pkgutil: is often sufficient to completely uninstall a pkg, and is strongly preferred over delete:.

IDs for the most recently-installed packages can be listed using the command:

$ "$(brew --repository)/Library/Taps/homebrew/homebrew-cask/developer/bin/list_recent_pkg_ids"

pkgutil: also accepts a regular expression match against multiple package IDs. The regular expressions are somewhat nonstandard. To test a pkgutil: regular expression against currently-installed packages, use the command:

$ "$(brew --repository)/Library/Taps/homebrew/homebrew-cask/developer/bin/list_pkg_ids_by_regexp" <regular-expression>

List Files Associated With a pkg Id

Once you know the ID for an installed package, (above), you can list all files on your system associated with that package ID using the macOS command:

$ pkgutil --files <package.id.goes.here>

Listing the associated files can help you assess whether the package included any launchctl jobs or kernel extensions (kexts).

uninstall Key launchctl:

IDs for currently loaded launchctl jobs can be listed using the command:

$ "$(brew --repository)/Library/Taps/homebrew/homebrew-cask/developer/bin/list_loaded_launchjob_ids"

IDs for all installed launchctl jobs can be listed using the command:

$ "$(brew --repository)/Library/Taps/homebrew/homebrew-cask/developer/bin/list_installed_launchjob_ids"

uninstall Key quit:

Bundle IDs for currently running Applications can be listed using the command:

$ "$(brew --repository)/Library/Taps/homebrew/homebrew-cask/developer/bin/list_running_app_ids"

Bundle IDs inside an Application bundle on disk can be listed using the command:

$ "$(brew --repository)/Library/Taps/homebrew/homebrew-cask/developer/bin/list_ids_in_app" '/path/to/application.app'

uninstall Key signal:

signal: should only be needed in the rare case that a process does not respond to quit:.

Bundle IDs for signal: targets may be obtained as for quit:. The value for signal: is an array-of-arrays, with each cell containing two elements: the desired Unix signal followed by the corresponding bundle ID.

The Unix signal may be given in numeric or string form (see the kill man page for more details).

The elements of the signal: array are applied in order, only if there is an existing process associated the bundle ID, and stopping when that process terminates. A bundle ID may be repeated to send more than one signal to the same process.

It is better to use the least-severe signals which are sufficient to stop a process. The KILL signal in particular can have unwanted side-effects.

An example, with commonly-used signals in ascending order of severity:

  uninstall signal: [
                      ['TERM', 'fr.madrau.switchresx.daemon'],
                      ['QUIT', 'fr.madrau.switchresx.daemon'],
                      ['INT',  'fr.madrau.switchresx.daemon'],
                      ['HUP',  'fr.madrau.switchresx.daemon'],
                      ['KILL', 'fr.madrau.switchresx.daemon'],
                    ]

Note that when multiple running processes match the given Bundle ID, all matching processes will be signaled.

Unlike quit: directives, Unix signals originate from the current user, not from the superuser. This is construed as a safety feature, since the superuser is capable of bringing down the system via signals. However, this inconsistency may also be considered a bug, and should be addressed in some fashion in a future version.

uninstall key login_item:

Login items associated with an Application bundle on disk can be listed using the command:

$ "$(brew --repository)/Library/Taps/homebrew/homebrew-cask/developer/bin/list_login_items_for_app" '/path/to/application.app'

Note that you will likely need to have opened the app at least once for any login items to be present.

uninstall Key kext:

IDs for currently loaded kernel extensions can be listed using the command:

$ "$(brew --repository)/Library/Taps/homebrew/homebrew-cask/developer/bin/list_loaded_kext_ids"

IDs inside a kext bundle you have located on disk can be listed using the command:

$ "$(brew --repository)/Library/Taps/homebrew/homebrew-cask/developer/bin/list_id_in_kext" '/path/to/name.kext'

uninstall Key script:

uninstall script: introduces a series of key-value pairs describing a command which will automate completion of the uninstall. Example (from gpgtools.rb):

  uninstall script:    {
                         executable: "#{staged_path}/Uninstall.app/Contents/Resources/GPG Suite Uninstaller.app/Contents/Resources/uninstall.sh",
                         sudo:       true,
                       }

It is important to note that, although script: in the above example does attempt to completely uninstall the pkg, it should not be used in detriment of pkgutil:, but as a complement when possible.

uninstall Key delete:

delete: should only be used as a last resort, if other uninstall methods are insufficient.

Arguments to uninstall delete: should use the following basic rules:

  • Only single quotes should be used, except when invoking #{version} interpolation. ENV['HOME'] and other variables should not be interpolated in the value.
  • Basic tilde expansion is performed on paths, i.e., leading ~ is expanded to the home directory.
  • Paths must be absolute.
  • Glob expansion is performed using the standard set of characters.

To remove user-specific files, use the zap stanza.

uninstall Key trash:

trash: arguments follow the same rules listed above for delete:.

Working With a pkg File Manually

Advanced users may wish to work with a pkg file manually, without having the package installed.

A list of files which may be installed from a pkg can be extracted using the command:

$ "$(brew --repository)/Library/Taps/homebrew/homebrew-cask/developer/bin/list_payload_in_pkg" '/path/to/my.pkg'

Candidate application names helpful for determining the name of a Cask may be extracted from a pkg file using the command:

$ "$(brew --repository)/Library/Taps/homebrew/homebrew-cask/developer/bin/list_apps_in_pkg" '/path/to/my.pkg'

Candidate package IDs which may be useful in a pkgutil: key may be extracted from a pkg file using the command:

$ "$(brew --repository)/Library/Taps/homebrew/homebrew-cask/developer/bin/list_ids_in_pkg" '/path/to/my.pkg'

A fully manual method for finding bundle ids in a package file follows:

  1. Unpack /path/to/my.pkg (replace with your package name) with pkgutil --expand /path/to/my.pkg /tmp/expanded.unpkg.
  2. The unpacked package is a folder. Bundle ids are contained within files named PackageInfo. These files can be found with the command find /tmp/expanded.unpkg -name PackageInfo.
  3. PackageInfo files are XML files, and bundle ids are found within the identifier attributes of <pkg-info> tags that look like <pkg-info ... identifier="com.oracle.jdk7u51" ... >, where extraneous attributes have been snipped out and replaced with ellipses.
  4. Kexts inside packages are also described in PackageInfo files. If any kernel extensions are present, the command find /tmp/expanded.unpkg -name PackageInfo -print0 | xargs -0 grep -i kext should return a <bundle id> tag with a path attribute that contains a .kext extension, for example <bundle id="com.wavtap.driver.WavTap" ... path="./WavTap.kext" ... />.
  5. Once bundle ids have been identified, the unpacked package directory can be deleted.