REMOVING ANARCHIVE, AND WHERE THINGS LIVE

Anarchive keeps your libraries and your originals apart from itself, so you can remove the app and keep everything you made. Here is where each thing lives, and how to take the app off cleanly.

WHERE THINGS LIVE

Libraries. A library is a package named after it, ending in ".anarchive" (or ".framehouse" for one made before beta 14), wherever you chose to save it: a folder on your Mac, an external disk, anywhere. Anarchive never moves a library. Originals you chose to copy into a library are inside its package; originals you referenced stay exactly where they were, and Anarchive never moves, changes or deletes them. To see how many originals a library holds inside, select it in the Finder and press Space: the preview says "copied inside".

Settings. The choices you make in Settings, and the list of recent libraries, are in one file:
~/Library/Containers/com.getanarchive.Anarchive/Data/Library/Preferences/com.getanarchive.Anarchive.plist

Application Support. Anarchive's own folder is inside its container:
~/Library/Containers/com.getanarchive.Anarchive/Data/Library/Application Support/Framehouse/
It holds, as you use the matching features:
  Models         the models you downloaded in Settings › Models
  Presets        your adjustment presets
  Set Lists      your set lists
  Formats        format profiles you added
  DroppedCopies  copies made while a dropped folder imports, kept so a stopped import can carry on
  AgentActivity.jsonl  the log of what agents did, shown in Settings › Agents

Caches. Things Anarchive can make again when it needs them:
~/Library/Containers/com.getanarchive.Anarchive/Data/Library/Caches/

Agent access. While agents are allowed, the socket they connect through is in the shared folder:
~/Library/Group Containers/59U7NZ956Y.com.getanarchive.Anarchive/

Footprint keys. If you turned on the footprint, its key for each library is in your login keychain, as "com.getanarchive.Anarchive.footprint" in Keychain Access. It never leaves this Mac.

The parts inside the app. The Finder preview of a library comes from a Quick Look extension inside the app itself (Anarchive.app › Contents › PlugIns); the model downloader and the agent helper are inside it too. macOS gives each a container of its own while the app is on your Mac: ~/Library/Containers/com.getanarchive.Anarchive.QuickLook, com.getanarchive.Anarchive.ModelDownloader and com.getanarchive.Anarchive.mcp. They only hold what macOS puts there; the extension only reads the package it is previewing.

To open any of these folders, choose Go › Go to Folder… in the Finder and paste the path.

BETA 24 AND EARLIER

Up to beta 24 the app had another name inside macOS, so its things are in other folders. The first time beta 25 opens it copies your settings, recent libraries, presets, set lists, format profiles and downloaded models across, and leaves the old folders as they were, so beta 24 still works if you go back to it. These are the old places:
~/Library/Containers/com.dougcain.Framehouse
~/Library/Group Containers/59U7NZ956Y.com.dougcain.Framehouse
~/Library/Containers/com.dougcain.Framehouse.QuickLook, com.dougcain.Framehouse.ModelDownloader and com.dougcain.Framehouse.mcp
and, if you used the footprint, "com.dougcain.Framehouse.footprint" in Keychain Access.

Because of the new name, macOS asks you once more for things it had granted to beta 24: to choose each recent library again when you first open it (the panel opens with it selected), and for access to Photos.

REMOVING THE APP

1. Quit Anarchive.

2. Move Anarchive.app to the Bin and empty it. The updater, the model downloader, the agent helper and the Quick Look extension are inside the app and go with it; Finder previews of libraries stop, and that is all. Your libraries and originals are untouched.

3. If you want nothing left behind, move these two folders to the Bin as well:
   ~/Library/Containers/com.getanarchive.Anarchive
   ~/Library/Group Containers/59U7NZ956Y.com.getanarchive.Anarchive
   That removes your settings, the recent libraries list, presets, set lists, downloaded models and caches. Keep the first folder if you expect to install Anarchive again and want them back. The containers of the parts inside the app (com.getanarchive.Anarchive.QuickLook, .ModelDownloader and .mcp in ~/Library/Containers) can go too, and so can the footprint keys in Keychain Access. If you used beta 24 or earlier, remove its folders and keychain items listed above in the same way.

4. Leave your libraries where they are, or move them: they are ordinary packages and nothing in them depends on the app being installed. To delete a library, move its package to the Bin. If originals were copied inside, they go with it, so check the Finder preview first and take out anything you still want.

PHOTOS ACCESS

If you used Photos as a source, or Add to Photos, you let Anarchive see your Photos library, and macOS lists it in System Settings › Privacy & Security › Photos. Switch it off there whenever you like. Anarchive only ever read from Photos and added what you chose; it never changed or deleted anything already in Photos.

If anything here doesn't match what you find, tell us: Help › Send Feedback…
