purge (prg)

purge (prg) is a simple command‑line uninstaller for macOS applications.

📜 Overview

prg automates removal of an app bundle and all its associated files—preferences, caches, support files, receipts, and more—by parsing the app’s metadata and scanning known system directories. Think of it as a drag‑and‑drop uninstaller in your terminal.

🚀 Features

• Bundle metadata parsing: Extracts CFBundleIdentifier and CFBundleName from the app’s Info.plist.
• Targeted scan paths: Searches only standard macOS locations (~/Library/Preferences, ~/Library/Caches, /var/db/receipts, etc.) for speed and accuracy.
• Interactive selection: Presents an interactive checklist so you can choose which files to keep or delete.
• Dry‑run support: Preview all candidate files without actually trashing them (coming soon!).
• Single‑file binary: Delivered as a self‑contained executable via bun build --compile, no Bun runtime required on target machines.

📥 Installation

Homebrew

# If you maintain your own tap:
brew tap wess/packages
brew install purge

Manual build

# Clone the repo
git clone https://github.com/wess/purge.git
cd purge

# Install dependencies and build (macOS x64 + arm64)
npm install
npm run build:mac

# Link the binary
tln -sf "$(pwd)/dist/prg-macos-$(uname -m)" /usr/local/bin/prg

💡 Usage

Run prg followed by one or more .app bundle paths:

$ prg /Applications/SomeApp.app

You’ll see a checklist of all related files. Uncheck items to keep them; press Enter to trash the rest.

Common options

• -n, --dry-run  Preview candidate files without deleting.
• -h, --help  Show usage information.

🛠️ Development

• Source: https://github.com/wess/purge
• Issues & PRs: welcome!

📝 License

This project is licensed under the MIT License. See LICENSE for details.