MacOS – safely uninstall iTunes from the Mac

itunesmacos

The only use I ever had for iTunes was updating and syncing my iDevices, but since the introduction of over-the-air updates and iCloud, I no longer have that need.

My question therefore is if I can safely remove iTunes from my Mac? Or are there other applications that depend on iTunes being available?

Thanks!

Best Answer

In order to uninstall iTunes, you need to delete (drag to the Trash) a lot of items:

  • The application's icon.
  • /Home/Library/Preferences/com.apple.iTunes....plist (a lot of files) and drag them to the Trash.
  • Look in /Library/ folder for an iTunes folder and if you find one drag it to the Trash.
  • Look in /Home/Library/ folder for an iTunes folder and drag it to the Trash.
  • Last, in /Home/Library/Preferences/ByHost/ folder look for two files with names com.apple.nnnnnnn.plist and drag them to the Trash.

Open Activity Monitor (Utilities folder) and in the process list look for iTunesHelper. Select it, then click on Quit Process icon. Quit or Force Quit the process. Now open the Accounts preference pane, click on Login Items tab, look for the iTunesHelper entry and select it, then click the "-" button and remove it from the list.

Empty the Trash. This should fully remove iTunes and its associated files/folders.

You can find all the information on this page.

But, there is no harm in deleting iTunes, except other iLife apps (iMovie, iPhoto,...) won't be able to get music out of the iTunes library for compiling their things (movies, slideshows,...)

So I'm seriously wondering why you want to delete iTunes at all. My advice is to leave it as it is and just ignore it.
You won't do any harm by it if you just leave iTunes there.

Related Question