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News.app, Stocks.app, GarageBand... when you try to delete them, you are forbidden because they are "protected" apps. I tried disabling SIP (System Integrity Protection) and still could not delete News.

I also tried running the sudo rm -rf news.app command in Terminal and nothing happened.

So I revealed package contents and deleted its guts instead.

How can we regain normal admin powers?

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    What's the point of deleting the app contents if you are not deleting the entire app? Why do you hate it so much?(they don't even take up much space)
    – airsquared
    Commented Feb 6, 2019 at 23:18
  • You do not need to disable SIP in order to delete e.g. Chess.app on SIP enabled systems, simply boot to Recovery Mode, (⌘R when restarting the Mac), and then in Terminal (on the Utilities menu)... e.g. rm -rf /Volumes/Macintosh\ HD/Applications/Chess.app and then type reboot and press enter to restart the Mac back to normal mode boot. Obviously if your normal Startup Disk is not Macintosh HD, then substitute the correct name in the command line. Note: Deleting with rm files are not placed in the Trash and typically cannot be recovered.
    – user3439894
    Commented Feb 6, 2019 at 23:30
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    Please clarify the specific problems you face. Eg the error message you got for your try on News.app (Note the case for News: sudo rm -rfv /Appl*/News.app should be different?)
    – LаngLаngС
    Commented Mar 2, 2019 at 9:50
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    +1 for asking this. Everyone gets the right to modify and learn how to change the OS.
    – bmike ♦
    Commented Mar 2, 2019 at 18:45
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    Sincere thanks, @bmike! The amount of crusading I've seen against this and similar questions has really tarnished my opinion of MacOS and the "community" around it. The down-voters are very vocal, without specifying any reason more substantive than "Those files are small!" Meanwhile, the upvoters haven't said much. This forum is, by definition, more of a fanclub than not. People need to realize it's okay to "think different" (even from Apple).
    – ChangeMachine
    Commented Mar 3, 2019 at 18:52

1 Answer 1

Reset to default
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Warning:

Whatever you consider bloatware, you may continue to consider bloatware, and have my blessing for doing so and voicing it. Problem is: Apple is evidently not considering at least the applications you listed as such. While I do not see any legitimate use for the applications you listed, they are perhaps interacting in not really foreseen ways with other applications and services that you may want to actually use!
So while it's possible to remove stuff Apple installs as and with the flags for "essential", think twice after making a backup before you really delete any. Also keep in mind that the stuff under /Applications is usually not everything: also look for stuff like Frameworks, Daemons etc. Just deleting a GUI app may not provide much if any of the benefit you're seeking.

Solution:

Boot from another partition.

Use an external disk or recovery.

SIP and other measures only protect internal boot drives. Once "Macintosh HD" isn't the boot drive you might do what you want with that partition.

For example:

– Boot into RecoveryMode.
– Mount "Macintosh HD"
– Start deleting

Pending clarification from the asker – For the frame the current question presents in its example:

With SIP disabled it should be possible to delete these applications from Terminal, booted from the regular boot partition, provided the path is actually spelled correctly, in this case with capital case at the start:
sudo rm -rv /Applications/News.app
It might be necessary to precede a sudo chflags norestricted FILE2DEL in some cases.

Related questions on Ask Different, showing the evolution of the problem over time and changing system policies:
– Can I delete any of the default apps the come with OS X?
– How to remove Apple System Apps
– How can I remove Chess from my mac?

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  • ˋrm -rfvˋ lists files as they are deleted but suppresses error messages. Maybe ˋrm -rvˋ is the better approach here.
    – nohillside ♦
    Commented Mar 2, 2019 at 13:46
  • @nohillside Thx. Bad habits. Also have to keep reminding myself that gnu always has some differences to bsd that come to bite us here…
    – LаngLаngС
    Commented Mar 2, 2019 at 14:00
  • Thanks LangLangC (and everyone). I take your warnings and advice to heart and advise others to do the same. But... breaking Macs is how we learn ;) Unfortunately I don't have time right now to focus on this issue (or even figure out why my utterly new 2018 Vega20 MBP is freezing up on reboot). I will try to verify the advice given.
    – ChangeMachine
    Commented Mar 3, 2019 at 19:18
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    Thanks, LangLangC. I didn't intend to direct that comment at you, personally. Sorry. I'm tempted to take this Apple protectionism issue to Meta. Thinking Apple is perfect is a person's right, but calling people "Apple bashers" (as someone did in a related Q I posted) any time their question implies Apple is flawed... Well isn't that the POINT of this forum? But like you'all, I've got work to do (and Mojave bugs to deal with).
    – ChangeMachine
    Commented Mar 5, 2019 at 19:31
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    Granted, Apple is not considering bloatware apps like Stocks or Chess. Actually I can hardly imagine any hw producer considering bloatware the factory set apps it ships along with his hardware. Granted also that each and every user is fully free to consider or not consider as bloatware what he/she gets when buying new hardware. Nonetheless, as a programmer of the "good old days", it somehow scares me that more and more pure financial tools (like Stocks) or "potentially opinion moving" stuff (like Apple TV) are being considered as part of the bare operating system!
    – user349608
    Commented Oct 13, 2019 at 7:53

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