Hi all,

I'm performing the tedious task of backing up before a clean install of Mountain Lion. Does anyone know of any tools that can locate all files - in Application Support, Frameworks etc. - associated with applications? E.g. I only use iPhoto and iMovie from iLife, so I'm trying to make sure I've got all associated files before the drive is erased.

Cheers.

I generally just do that stuff manually. I know what I'm looking for, and I'm fast at scanning for information, so it doesn't take long.

I don't know of any tools that exactly fit your purposes, but perhaps you could try one of those app removal tools and just stop it at confirmation. AppZapper, CleanApp, and Hazel are meant to be pretty good, and it looks like they all round up the associated files for you before prompting if you really want to delete. Perhaps you can grab the files that way.

I'm the same usually, only I wanted the process to be a little more automated with such a large task.

I had considered using one of those utilities initially, but settled for a good old-fashioned 'better safe than sorry' mass backup of Application Support etc. Most things are replaceable if I missed anything - I'll be re-downloading the majority of software - but I think I've covered my bases.

Amazingly, I've inadvertently made the decision to upgrade pretty much in line with the announcement of an OS X update (I decided over the weekend) only this time I was two versions behind, and there are still a handful of compatibility issues with my old stuff!

alternativeto.net/tag/uninstall-manager/ - filter by OS X.

I've just started trying out Magican; the way everything "just works" even though there's no company info and all the text is in mangled English makes me VERY cautious about this (might want to ensure you've got little snitch installed); it is possible that this software is exfiltrating a bunch of data and is as corrupt as MacKeeper. Great tool for rounding up the sort of info you're looking for though, and has a built-in "malware scanner" (doesn't say which one or how it works) as well as other goodies.

So... be careful how much you let it do, but that thing could definitely help you trim and archive both before and after.

[Edit] I did some digging, and it looks like Magican is owned and run by Hao Xu -- @windknown, an author of www.computer.org/csdl/proceedings/icycs/...3398/00/3398c198.pdf
Seems to have things registered out of New York, but has had some activity in Asia-Pacific as well.

Sorry I didn't get back to people on this. As I said, I went with the brute force approach, but I'll keep these in mind just in case. So far I've saved everything I didn't have installers for.