Aral Balkan

The comprehensive uninstallation directions for MacPython comprise the single sentence: "To uninstall MacPython, you can simply remove these three things." The three things refer to the MacPython 2.5 application folder (/Applications/MacPython), the framework (/Library/Frameworks/Python.framework), and (I'm assuming) the symlink in /usr/local/bin.

Unfortunately, what it doesn't tell you is that unless you also remove all files with names starting with Python under /Library/Receipts, the installer won't let you reinstall MacPython (it checks these to see what is already installed). Instead the installer tells you that a newer version is installed, marks the files "skip", and fails with "nothing to install".

I spent a good few hours until I realized this so I hope this helps someone else keep their hair.

Comments

• Thanks! This was a big help.

  by Matt on 2008-06-17 10:37:05

• Thanks for the info. With regard to the symlink, there's a whole load of symlinks in /usr/local/bin. Could some one please tell me how do I know which one(s) to remove? It looks like some of them could be for the default 'Mac OS' python installation which I don't want to break.

  by Jake on 2008-10-31 17:21:46

• Thanks a big help for me as well.

  by James on 2009-03-29 20:27:05