Uninstall Eclipse under OSX?

Question

I'm running Eclipse SDK 3.4.0 on Mac OS X 10.5.6.

Every time I try to install something new through "software updates", the message "The software items you selected may not be valid with your current installation" shows up.

So I'm going to uninstall it and re-install Eclipse.

Should I just erase the Eclipse folder or is there a way to uninstall it?

Answer 1

Eclipse isn't usually installed, it is just run.

Answer 2

No need to uninstall anything, you can just delete the eclipse/ folder, but you should also use a fresh workspace or delete the workspace/.metadata folder.

Answer 3

Deleting the eclipse folder is equivalent to uninstalling it. In fact, if you don't want to tamper with the existing installation you can create another instance of eclipse and run from the new location.

Answer 4

BTW. AppZapper is a great OSX tool for uninstalling apps and their preferences.

It sometimes comes a part of MacHeist

Answer 5

Eclipse has no impact on Mac OS beyond it directory, so there is no problem uninstalling.

I think that What you are facing is the result of Eclipse switching the plugin distribution system recently. There are now two redundant and not very compatible means of installing plugins. It's a complete mess. You may be better off (if possible) installing a more recent version of Eclipse (maybe even the 3.5 milestones) as they seem to be more stable in that regard.

Answer 6

Really? Installing Eclipse messed with my svn working copies because (I think) it contains an over-eager copy of svn1.5. This makes me think there's more to uninstalling it than just deleting the directory.

Answer 7

Just deleye the eclipse/ folder wherever it is

Answer 8

Actually Eclipse does create some other files not within it's directory which survive deleting it's directory.

In Snow Leopard, look in your user's account under:

Library/Caches/org.eclipse.eclipse Library/Preferences/org.eclipse.eclipse.plist

Not sure if you ned to turn on viewing of hidden files to see those.