macOS Tips
← All tips

Install and uninstall apps that are not in the App Store

There is no installer wizard: you drag the app into a folder, and you delete it by dragging it out.

Apps Any Mac Basic #installing #from-windows

Published: · Source: Genius Manu

Plenty of apps — Chrome among them — are not in the App Store and are downloaded from the developer’s website. They arrive as a .dmg file, which is a disk image, not an installer.

  1. Double-click the .dmg. It mounts and opens a window showing the app icon next to a shortcut to the Applications folder.
  2. Drag the app onto that folder. That is the whole installation: it copies the app into place.
  3. Eject the disk image — the ⏏ button next to it in the Finder sidebar — and delete the .dmg from Downloads. Neither is needed again.

The app is now in Applications and will show up in Spotlight. The first time you open something downloaded outside the App Store, macOS asks you to confirm that you really want to run it.

Uninstalling has no wizard either: drag the app from Applications to the Trash and empty it. If the app is in the App Store, prefer installing it from there — updates then arrive automatically.

Related tips