I wanted to remove Whatsapp from my Mac mini. Having run “Find Any File” I can delete most of the components but several, very small files, are in Macintosh HD > private > var > db > oah > … The oah folder has an icon with a no entry sign and Find Any File cannot delete files inside such folders. Curiously, Finder gives the oah folder size as zero bytes but will not open it.
Does anyone know how to open such folders and manage the contents?
That’s the Rosetta 2 cache directory, which stores translated x86 code. The directory is protected by Apple’s System Integrity Protection (SIP) feature.
If the cache files aren’t causing any specific problems, I recommend simply leaving them alone.
If you are absolutely certain that you want to remove the files, you should be able to do so by disabling SIP temporarily.
Unless you know that the files are causing problems, though, you almost certainly are exposing yourself to greater risk by disabling SIP and diving into protected system areas than by leaving the files alone.
Thanks, that makes sense. Just more chads which have no use. I’ll leave well enough alone.
You can change the permissions as admin to give yourself access…Get info on the folder, authenticate at the bottom as admin, set perms, and then select the propagate downward option (that’s not exactly what it says but it’s equivalent). Although to be honest…you can probably just ignore them and not worry about it.
This still won’t work if the folder is protected by SIP. It will prevent the changes even if you are elevated to admin.
True…didn’t think of that.
Thanks for all the comments. For me, it’s not worth messing with SIP just to save a few hundred kB. However, I do find it annoying that software vendors install crud in locations inaccessible to most users and do not provide a 100% uninstall option.
I hear you. A few KB might not be worth the effort. When it’s tens of GB (like it was for me when the Mac App Store couldn’t clean up multiple Xcode orphaned failed upgraders) then that’s a problem.