More: Responding to freelance's question before he even asks it, my impression is that CleanApp knows what to delete but isn't geared tell you before deletion time.
Your impression is incorrect.
- CleanApp shows you a list of the apps currently installed on the boot drive and optionally on other attached drives
- when you select a Candidate for deletion it shows a proposed list of the files and folders that will be deleted along with a graph indicating the percentage of other users who have elected to delete that file along with the app.
- you can individually choose which files and folders associated with the app you want to delete.
- you click the Trash icon in CleanApp,
- respond to the "Are you sure" dialogue
- enter your administrative password if the app or some of its files are owned by System
only then is any file of folder deleted.
Back in the PPC days, I used an app called Installer Observer. You ran it just before, then after a new install and the app told you exactly where and what had been installed.
Does CleanApp do that? Do you know of any app that does that?
There is a CleanApp daemon that tracks all installations so it knows what files are placed by the installer or in the installation process. Then it uses an algorithm based on file name/extensionf, location, and a historical database of what and where other files associated with the app have been found in other installations to identify additional files created by the app at run time. It does not track or identify data files created by the app.
