UninstallPKG FAQ

Q: Which packages should i remove?

Q: How can i save space by removing printer drivers?

Q: Should i delete older versions of application where i also have newer versions?

Q: Can UninstallPKG remove each and every package perfectly?

Q: Are there packages that UninstallPKG can not uninstall at all?

Q: Why am i not seeing the packages from apps that have been copied from another Mac using 'Migration Assistant'?

Q: Why doesn't UninstallPKG appear in the 'Launchpad'?

Q: How can I completely uninstall UninstallPKG itself?

Q: How can I solve the 'XPC_ERROR_CONNECTION_INVALID' error or repeated failures to install the helper tool?

You should only remove packages corresponding to applications or functionality (unused printer drivers?) that you know you don't want to use anymore. You should also remove all packages of applications that you have already partially removed manually, you can easily view all these packages by clicking the "Defunct Packages" button above the package list. Never uninstall packages where you do not know for sure what they are doing or providing.

If you see the printer drivers in the UninstallPKG package list you can just go ahead and un-install them.
However it may be possible the drivers don't show up in the list because by default UninstallPKG does not allow to remove system packages since this could lead to a damaged and possibly even un-bootable system.
To get the drivers to show up just follow this procedure:
1.) Open the preferences and remove "OS X Installer" "Software Update" "SoftwareUpdateConfigData" and "softwareupdated" from the "Ignore packages installed by" list
2.) Click the refresh button in the main window to refresh the package list
3.) Remove the printer drivers you want to see gone. For example the Samsung printer drivers are named: com.apple.pkg.Samsung_Common
4.) MAKE SURE NOT TO REMOVE ANY ESSENTIAL PACKAGES BESIDES THE PRINTER DRIVERS
5.) It would be a good idea to reset the preferences to the default values after you've uninstalled the printer drivers (i.e. press the reset button next to the "Ignore packages installed by" list in the preferences).

It is possible you have packages of multiple versions of the same application installed at once. Most of the time the actual application won't be installed multiple times because the location did not change and it was just updated in place. Although the old packages most likely share most of their files with the newer versions it should still be save to uninstall them because UninstallPKG will refuse to remove any files that are used by other packages on your system. You can easily verify this by going to the un-installation screen, most or all files should be listed under the category 'Files that will not be removed because they are used by other packages'. Because of this un-installing old packages of used apps is quite useless, nothing will get removed anyway. Since it won't save any space and there is still the slight chance something might go wrong (if the newer packages fail to list an essential file it will get removed. Newer versions might also have been installed without a package at all!) we recommend not to remove old packages of applications still in use. Just wait until you don't need the app at all anymore and then remove the packages of all versions at once.

Most packages are removed perfectly but some rare packages create or move files and folders in scripts running during installation and these files can not be determined from the saved receipt files, resulting in some left-over files after uninstallation. However, we have workarounds in place to support more common packages like Office perfectly. So, if a package has a native uninstallation solution, try this first. If you come by any package that is not removed perfectly by UninstallPKG (i.e. some files are left over after uninstallation) just let us know and we'll try to fix this for subsequent releases.

Yes, UninstallPKG can not uninstall "BitDefender Antivirus" and "CrashPlan", because they take over the system in a weird way. Luckily all of these products come with a native Uninstaller and UninstallPKG will even offer you to launch this Uninstaller if you try to remove these packages through UninstallPKG.

Sadly while Apple's 'Migration Assistant' is able to copy apps from your old Mac to your new Mac, it won't actually also copy the corresponding package receipts over. We've filed a bug-report with Apple about this issue. Until this issue is fixed you can try manually copying the missing receipts to your new Mac - they are located in the '/private/var/db/receipts/' folder.

We've received numerous reports of UninstallPKG not appearing in the 'Launchpad' - this seems to be a problem within Apple's Launchpad which we've reported as a bug to Apple but they haven't fixed it yet.
We'd recommend to use some other other mechanism to launch UninstallPKG (Dock, Spotlight, Finder, LaunchBar/QuickSilver/etc) besides the Launchpad until Apple fixes the issue.
If this is not possible please try this workaround:
1.) rename 'UninstallPKG' to 'UPKG' in the Finder
2.) launch it (important, don't skip this step)
3.) quit it
4.) launch 'Launchpad' and see 'UPKG' suddenly appearing there
5.) optionally rename 'UPKG' back to 'UninstallPKG'
6.) hope its still there in LaunchPad

Remove the following files:

• /Applications/UninstallPKG.app
• /Library/PrivilegedHelperTools/com.corecode.UninstallPKGDeleteHelper
• /Library/LaunchDaemons/com.corecode.UninstallPKGDeleteHelper.plist
• /Users/<YOURUSERNAME>/Library/Preferences/com.corecode.UninstallPKG.plist
Remove the following folders:
• /Users/<YOURUSERNAME>/Library/Application Support/UninstallPKG/
• /Users/<YOURUSERNAME>/Library/Saved Application State/com.corecode.UninstallPKG.savedState/

There seems to be an installation problem that can be cured by completely uninstalling and then re-installing UninstallPKG - try this:
1.) quit UninstallPKG if it is currently running
2.) drag this file to the trash: /Library/LaunchDaemons/com.corecode.UninstallPKGDeleteHelper.plist
3.) drag this file to the trash: /Library/PrivilegedHelperTools/com.corecode.UninstallPKGDeleteHelper
4.) drag "UninstallPKG" from your 'Applications' folder to the trash
5.) reboot your Mac
6.) empty your Trash
7.) re-download the latest UninstallPKG version and launch it