Removing personal data from a user account without deleting the user account

Wiki ▸ Activities and events

Delete application data from "inside-out," meaning, erase things in this order:

1. First the application itself to remove its data (browser cookies, etc.), then
2. use the file explorer/Finder to remove application's files, then
3. use the file explorer/Finder to delete the application itself.

MacOS notes

1. Delete ~/Library/Caches

• This can also just be used to reclaim some disk space, it's usually pretty sizable.

1. Delete ~/Library/Preferences/*plists (of relevant applications)
2. Delete ~/Library/Logs
3. Securely delete files from a MacOS machine: rm -rfP ~/.Trash/*
4. Wipe slack space: dd if=/dev/urandom of=/tmp/BIGRANDOMFILE bs=4096k || rm -f /tmp/BIGRANDOMFILE
5. Remove login items: System Preferences -> Users and Groups -> Current User -> Login Items tab -> Select the login item and click the remove (-) button.
6. Remove any user specific System Preference Panes: ~/Library/PreferencePanes
7. Remove your personal dictionary by deleting the ~/Library/Spelling/LocalDictionary
8. Remove non-browser application cookies: ~/Library/Cookies
9. Delete old passwords from Keychain Access.app
10. Clear all the "Recent items" menus that you can think of:

• Apple Menu -> Recent Items -> Clear
• Finder -> Go -> Recent Folders -> Clear