Delete/disable app-installed services?

Question

I've written a bunch of services for my own use that I use frequently, but recently it's getting tougher.

I installed some apps (such as Skim.app, apptivate) that introduce their own services (eg. Open URL in Skim) which I don't need/use. These services clutter up my services list though (Skim alone add about 4 services to the list you get when you right click a Finder item).

Is there a way of removing these services from the list? I've tried looking for them in ~/Library/services but they aren't there. Where should I look?

Answer 1

In 10.6, you should be able to disable them by unchecking them in the Keyboard->Keyboard Shortcuts->Services list in System Preferences. For previous versions of OS X, there's a handy little app called Service Scrubber.

Hunting down and deleting services for apps you've already deleted can be troublesome; there are some detailed hints and tips in this article. Summary: find all the Info.plist files on your system that contain "NSServices", using a terminal command like:

find / -name "Info.plist" -exec grep -l "NSServices" {} \;

and (carefully) edit the suspect Info.plist files by hand.

Answer 2

If you dislike the way Services are now handled, please leave feedback at http://www.apple.com/feedback/

Not only are Services now hidden in System Preferences/Keyboard/Keyboard Shortcuts, but also newly installed apps freely add all their services, and worse, by default check them all.

One must go to Keyboard Shortcuts to even learn what was installed, and to uncheck any unwanted, in a small window that does not resize, from a list that gets absurdly long.

There are Services folders in System/Library/, /Library and ~/Library, from which you can trash any you won't use.