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I know there is the graphical method by which you can individually remove each system app such as Chess, Safari, Mail, Game Center, Photo Booth, FaceTime, iBooks, iTunes, Maps, Dictionary, Automator, Notes, Messages, and ImageCapture.

However, this is taking too much time and I would like to control their removal better because my SSDs are only 120 GB and I need more space. I am considering the application AppCleaner enough smart capable of doing the process because it can well decide which is a system app and what is not. So the thing what remains is to make the system apps look like normal apps, probably.

A terminal approach would probably be most appropriate if not possible otherwise. I would like leave the removal of those applications for AppCleaner in the end.

I see these locks on the icons of my systems apps in AppCleaner

enter image description here

Space taken by OS X applications

I run patrix's command

sudo du -sm /Applications/{Chess,Safari,Mail,FaceTime,iBooks,iTunes,Maps,Dictionary,Automato‌​r,Notes,Messages,ImageCapture}.app

I get 

5   /Applications/Chess.app
40  /Applications/Safari.app
28  /Applications/Mail.app
4   /Applications/FaceTime.app
27  /Applications/iBooks.app
219 /Applications/iTunes.app
8   /Applications/Maps.app
12  /Applications/Dictionary.app
du: /Applications/Automato‌​r.app: No such file or directory
6   /Applications/Notes.app
16  /Applications/Messages.app

where you see that I close more than 300 Mb because of them. That is too much with my 128 GB SSD.

How can you remove system apps by AppCleaner?

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    Open Terminal, run sudo du -sm /Applications/{Chess,Safari,Mail,FaceTime,iBooks,iTunes,Maps,Dictionary,Automator,Notes,Messages,ImageCapture}.app and then consider whether it's really worth the effort of removing them.
    – nohillside ♦
    Mar 30, 2016 at 8:01
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    We are talking 0.2% of your disk space here. If you think it's really worth it, disable SIP, remove the apps and reenable SIP. But you will get more space back by regularly cleaning out caches, temp folders, old downloads, music not played for months/years etc.
    – nohillside ♦
    Apr 23, 2016 at 9:02
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    System Integrity Protection, please use the search function for details
    – nohillside ♦
    Apr 23, 2016 at 9:06
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    just want to throw in a word of warning here if some other Users come here - unless you really know what you are doing don't uninstall/delete System Applications from OS X you may corrupt your entire OS. Some of those Apps like Messages come bundled with Frameworks used by a lot of other Apps e.g. the File Share Function integrated in the Finder and Safari's Site Sharing Function will Fail and cause the whole Safari/Finder to crash if Messages isn't present on your System.
    – konqui
    Jul 10, 2017 at 11:25
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    I've been doing this for years with zero technical issues. No huge space savings, but I'm a minimalist, and removing apps I never use makes my computer feel "clean". You'll need to disable SIP, and I recommend leaving it disabled because apps will sometimes reappear after major updates. Don't do anything stupid like deleting System Preferences or Terminal.
    – Wowfunhappy
    Jul 11, 2017 at 14:38

1 Answer 1

Reset to default
5

The remove the locks so that you can delete macOS system apps go to AppCleaner -> Preferences -> General Tab and Uncheck "protect default OSX Apps"

I just cleaned up garageband from macOS Sierra 10.12.5 which was shown as locked (system protected app) as shown in your image.

EDIT: As @leo said, please be warned that removing some system app like messages might break/ crash a whole set of applications or even the entire OS. SO please be careful about trying this

enter image description here

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2
  • 1
    Please, add this warning in your answer just want to throw in a word of warning here if some other Users come here - unless you really know what you are doing don't uninstall/delete System Applications from OS X you may corrupt your entire OS. Some of those Apps like Messages come bundled with Frameworks used by a lot of other Apps e.g. the File Share Function integrated in the Finder and Safari's Site Sharing Function will Fail and cause the whole Safari/Finder to crash if Messages isn't present on your System.
    – Léo Léopold Hertz 준영
    Jul 10, 2017 at 12:49
  • Note, it seems to be /System/Applications, not /Applications/ in v10.15.6
    – Klesun
    Sep 30, 2020 at 12:21

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