how to detect files related to an app on a mac

Question

I am wondering how an application like appzapper can detect the files related to an application?

All ideas are welcome.

Thanks for your help,

Regards,

Answer 1

By looking into the standard locations that usually are used by applications to store preferences (like Library/Preferences/ , Library/Caches, etc., both in your home directory ~/ and under / ) I couldn´t find any file or folder that isn´t using either the applications name (eg. ~/Library/Application Support/Firefox) or it´s bundle identifier (eg. ~/Library/Preferences/org.mozilla.firefox.plist) in its name; so I guess they´re just using that.

In the case of AppZapper you can go ahead and try for any (not currently running) Application to rename the ~/Library/Application Support/AppName folder for example to ~/Library/Application Support/111AppName - AppZapper doesn´t find it anymore. If you change it to ~/Library/Application Support/AppName111 it shows up as a related file.

Out of this you can conclude that there isn´t any magical linkage between a folder full of preferences and it´s associated application that AppZapper is reading out, it´s merely checking for folders starting with the Application´s Name.