Command to uninstall all apps from App Store

[tplobo]

Is your feature request related to a problem? Please describe.

When testing, bootstrapping and reinstalling a machine, I'd like to have the ability to uninstall all apps from a single command.

Describe the solution you'd like

Something similar to the function below, that I've been currently using.

function mas-nuke {
    sudo -v
    while IFS= read -r LINE; do
        APP_ID=$(echo $LINE | awk '{print $1;}');
        #sudo mas uninstall $ID;            # fails, issue with `mas` package
        APP_DRY=$(mas uninstall $APP_ID --dry-run)
        APP_DATA=$(echo $APP_DRY | head -n1)
        APP_PATH=$(echo '/'${APP_DATA#*/})
        #APP_NAME=$(echo $APP_DATA | cut -d "/" -f 1)
        echo "Uninstalling" $APP_PATH " ..."
        sudo chown $(id -un) $APP_PATH      # change ownership to user
        trash $APP_PATH
    done <<< "$(mas list)" # Feed list into loop

With the change in ownership, I was able to not require sudo and send the app to the user trash, not the root one. Note: sending to the trash relies on brew install trash.

Describe alternatives you've considered

A similar function could be defined with rm instead of trash. Also, the current implementation does not "appclean" the mac. It only uninstalls the app, but all associated files stay. A more thorough function could be implemented with mdfind.

Additional context

(none)

[brandon-fryslie]

This is possible to achieve with standard unix tools awk and xargs. I suggest implementing this in mas directly would be an anti-pattern at odds with the unix philosophy of "do one thing and do it well".

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unix_philosophy

The requested behavior could be implemented easily with a command like the one below. If mas uninstall doesn't work, that should be fixed rather than adding another uninstall function that reimplements the same functionality.

mas list | awk '{print $1}' | xargs -I '{}' mas uninstall '{}'

If this is too verbose, I'd suggest implementing an API like:

# allow printing only IDs from mas list
mas list -q

# allow uninstalling multiple IDs with the mas uninstall command
mas uninstall <id1> <id2>

# use them together
mas list -q | xargs mas uninstall

Personally I don't think it makes sense to add functionality outside of what is available in the app store. But if cleaning up app data is desired, it should be added to the base uninstall command as an option rather than implementing a 2nd way to delete an app.