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I'm using MacOS 10.14 Mojave on a MacBook Pro.

I'm trying to disable iTunes, mostly because it annoys me several times a day when I use my keyboard play/pause media button.

I have Spotify up and running and it usually gets these commands, but sometimes iTunes will pop out of nowhere (mostly when it's been a while without focusing the Spotify window).

I know in the past iTunesHelper process was responsible for this behavior and we could just disable it in the login items.

But today I have nothing in my login items, and no iTunesHelper process running.

The only suspect process I found was "com.apple.iTunesLibraryService", I tried to force kill it but it won't change anything.

Of course I tried to delete iTunes but it is "required by MacOS" -- seriously.

If I try to change authorisation on app to force uninstall anyway it tells me I don't have the required authorizations to do that -- as an administrator, right.

The only way to delete it seems to imply using some shady tricks that may or may not break my OS.

I'm seriously annoyed by the fact I can't own my laptop fully.

How can I uninstall or disable iTunes on macOS?

Side note: I will never connect any Apple device to my laptop, if that matters for iTunes sync or something.

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2 Answers 2

Reset to default
17
  1. Disable SIP
  2. Open /Applications/Utilities/Terminal.app
  3. Enter in sudo rm -rf /Applications/iTunes.app
  4. Enter your password (it won’t be displayed on screen)
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  • aaaand ... DONE. Thank you sir ! However, I have a feeling I'm going to have some funky updates in a near future 🙄
    – Apolo
    Commented Nov 29, 2018 at 8:56
  • This doesn't work for me. It's still installed and visible in Applications.
    – Magnus Lind Oxlund
    Commented Feb 11, 2019 at 12:18
  • @MagnusLindOxlund does the terminal command give you any errors? Can you still go into iTunes.app/Contents? Did you restart?
    – At0micMutex
    Commented Feb 11, 2019 at 21:50
  • Can SIP be re-enabled after uninstalling iTunes? Will this cause the decaying corpse of iTunes to reanimate?
    – intuited
    Commented Mar 6, 2019 at 15:59
  • @intuited yes you can, I did
    – Apolo
    Commented Mar 14, 2019 at 8:57
-1

Apple has ensured that iTunes CANNOT be deleted anymore. rm fails.

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  • 2
    This contradicts the answer already given...
    – nohillside ♦
    Commented Jan 1, 2019 at 18:47
  • 3
    Sure there is a lot of safeguards to prevent users from doing bad things with the OS. But At0mic's answer provide a way of removing it
    – Apolo
    Commented Jan 2, 2019 at 11:04

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