How to get rid of the remains of an old, unwanted Mac app

June 4, 2014 9:34 AM

Some time ago I seemed to have acquired a less-than-legitimate copy of the Mac app Angry Birds 4.0.0. Since updating my Mac to Mavericks I am bothered daily by a notification popping up asking me to update the app today, or be reminded (forever) about doing it tomorrow(s).

The only action I can take is UPDATE which then tells me that the
"Update [is] Unavailable with this Apple ID"

I have deleted this app from my Mac and deleted the relevant _MASReceipt file (if there was one) as talked about here: https://discussions.apple.com/message/18451642#18451642

but still the notifications keep popping up.

As far as I know, all remnants of the app are gone, but still there must be something somewhere causing Software Update to think it's still around.

Any ideas?

posted by anonymous to Computers & Internet (3 answers total)

Bits and pieces of a cracked copy of Angry Birds were used in several different pirated Mac apps. You probably have another pirated app on your computer that is identifying itself to the update system as Angry Birds. I would recommend going through all your apps and checking each one.
posted by bcwinters at 10:09 AM on June 4, 2014 [2 favorites]

Have you tried uninstallers like AppZapper or TrashMe? They come with free trials that should be fine for cleaning out your one app, I think.

(The important thing is to look carefully at what files they are going to delete before you hit the "Zap" button.)
posted by RedOrGreen at 2:33 PM on June 4, 2014

App Zapper
posted by persona au gratin at 2:01 AM on June 5, 2014