Uninstall Google Desktop

08 April
11

Google Desktop Mac install fails every time, no matter what I try. It fails just at the end (during post-install) telling me:

Google Desktop Error

What can I say? Thanks. Thanks. ?

The problem is it leaves a lot of files scattered across the system (it even replaces some system files1 with its own version!), so I made a script to clean the mess left by the failed installs. This is a quick and dirty script with absolutely no warranty whatsoever. I doesn’t deal with running processes, you have to kill them first. This is only tested on my system.

Meanwhile, I’ll wait for a release more “beta” than this “alpha” quality software to test it.

Here is the script: remove_gd.rb.zip (1.5KB)

Update: The Google Desktop 1.0.1 update doesn’t fix my problem…

  1. e.g. the file in /System/Library/Frameworks/ where the /usr/bin/mdimport symlink points to. ↩

11 Comments

Matthew Marshall 4 Jun 07 06:13 Permalink

Hello and good day. I just wanted to say thanks for the ruby script to get google desktop out of my G5. GD seemed like an interesting idea when it came out but I almost immediately started kicking myself for installing something that requires such high level permissions. Any recommendations for getting into Ruby?

FredB 6 Jun 07 19:04 Permalink

Hi Matthew,

You’re welcome, glad the script helped you.

About Ruby, you can start with the (free) first edition of Programming Ruby (nicknamed Pickaxe) or one of the tutorials available online. Once you’re sure you want to learn more or be more up to date, I highly recommend the second edition of Programming Ruby. It is a great way to learn and a good reference as well. There is a lot of other good books, but this one is the classic.

Justin 10 Jul 07 13:39 Permalink

Hi, where do I find this script???

FredB 10 Jul 07 13:54 Permalink

Hi Justin,

What’s wrong with the line: “Here is the script: remove_gd.rb.zip”

;)

N.B: The script is untested with the latest Google Desktop version, but it shouldn’t do nothing bad anyway.

Susie 6 Aug 07 20:25 Permalink

I have tried everything suggested and still cannot get rid of Google desktop. It has my computer running so slow. Help !

FredB 7 Aug 07 14:49 Permalink

Hi Susie, Be sure to:

  1. Kill every processes related to Google Desktop in Activity Monitor. (I don’t remember the exact names, sorry).

  2. Run the script with sudo.

Maybe GD has changed the files’ names in the latest version or something, but I don’t want to reinstall it just to check. ;)

Feel free to contact me if you need.

frank 6 Sep 07 01:37 Permalink

I also have trouble getting rid of Google. It does not appear on my pc program list.

andreea 29 Oct 07 09:20 Permalink

good

delta4 8 Nov 07 12:19 Permalink

For all those people who are not able to remove google desktop from their pc’s, here is a solution:

  1. Go to this link

  2. There you will be directed to this link

  3. Download and save that file and run the setup.

  4. You will be asked to restart your pc. Select the option that you will restart the pc later.

  5. Now restart the pc manually.

  6. Then go to google desktop preferences. de-select all options that google desktop can search i.e word, excel etc.

  7. Now go to add/remove programs and remove google desktop. again de-select all the options, dont leave any comments.

  8. You will be asked to restart your pc. select the option that you will restart the pc later.

  9. Now restart the pc manually.

YOU JUST GOT RID OF GOOGLE DESKTOP.

Ames Tiedeman 17 Jan 08 21:36 Permalink

Extremely helpful! Thanks.

David 7 Jul 08 03:12 Permalink

Thanks, delta4, but doesn’t that procedure apply only to PCs?

For Mac, I moved the Google Desktop and Google Updater folders to the Trash (on advice from Apple Tech Support), not realizing that I was also trashing the uninstaller. <:(

Thousands of error messages in the Console told me GD wasn’t fully uninstalled, so I hunted around the root level of my hard drive and found these things:

/Library/Google: deleted entire folder

/Library/Internet Plug-Ins: deleted GoogleGadget.webplugin and GoogleOneClikPluginDeluxe.plugin

/Library/LaunchAgents: deleted com.google.Desktop.Agent.plist

/Library/LaunchDaemons: deleted com.google.Desktop.Daemon.plist, com.google.Desktop.StatUploader.plist, and com.google.GoogleML.plist

After restarting the Mac, I now see no more failure messages in the Console, so I hope I’ve cleared Google Desktop from my Mac fully and forever.

By the way, I really liked Google Desktop on my Windows PCs; it just didn’t feel right on my new Mac, though.

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