Understanding How To Install Mac Apps Downloaded From Web Sites

Often when you download apps from third-party web sites you are given a disk image and need to do a drag-and-drop install of the app. New Mac users are sometimes not sure how this works and may not know what to do with the disk image or try to run the app while it is still in the disk image. Learn how to get the app into your Application folder and then run it from Launchpad, Spotlight or the Dock.

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Video Transcript: Hi this is Gary with MacMost.com. Today let me show you how to properly install most third party apps that you download from websites. 
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So a common way to install third party apps on your Mac is to download them from their official websites and then you end up with what's called a disk image. When you open that disk image it looks just like a folder but it's a little different. Then you'll see that application and you'll also see something that looks like the Applications folder. Usually there's an arrow going from one to the other. Let me show you what to do in this situation
So as an example I'm going to download 2 third party web browsers. One is Goggle Chrome. I'm going to go to the official Goggle Chrome download page. I have a Download Chrome button. The first time you do this it's going to ask you for permission to download from this site. You say OK. Then it downloads it to the Downloads folder. The same thing with Firefox. When you go to Firefox you get a Download Now button. You click on that. It may or may not ask you for permission. Then it will download to your Downloads folder.
I'm just using Firefox and Chrome as an example. These could be all sorts of different types of apps provided by third parties at their official website. So they could be games. They could be office apps. They could be utilities. Anything. Just remember to only ever download software from sites that you trust and make sure you're downloading from the OFFICIAL site of the app. Often the app may be something you trust but is the website you're downloading from something you trust. That's why you always make sure that you go to the developer's site and download from their links. Not from some other site that just lists a bunch of apps to download.
In Safari you can click on Downloads here and you can see your recent downloads. You may also have the Downloads folder in your Dock in which case you can click it and see the file you've downloaded. But if you don't you can just go to Finder and go to Go, then Downloads and it will take you to your Downloads folder. 
Now these files don't look like apps because they're not. You could see the file extension here .dmg. If you're not seeing file extensions you can always select the file, use Command i, and then you can see the full file name there and see that it is a disk image. So what is a disk image? Well, a disk image is a type of file that pretends to be a drive. Like a USB thumb drive that you plug into your Mac or an external drive. But it's not a disk but a disk image. Basically the content of an external disk but stored inside a file.
When you double click on one of these to open it, it will take a little while to open. You may see it say Verifying as it verifies the contents to make sure that the download was intact. Then it will open up in a new Finder window here and it looks just like a folder in the Finder. But there's something a little different going on. If we look in the Finder in the sidebar and you look for Locations, you may have to hit the Show button next to Locations, you'll see a list of all your drives. Here's my main hard drive. Here's an external drive that I have connected and my Time Machine drive that I've connected. You can see there's that Goggle Chrome disk image. That only appears there once I've opened it up.
So what do you do now? Well, a lot of people jump right into running the application. After all the application is right there. You just double click on it and in most cases it will launch and run. But this is not the proper way to do it because what's going to happen is eventually you're going to close this disk image and it will look like the app disappeared completely from your computer. Instead you want to install it.
Installing it is really easy. This is called a drag and drop install. It's made easier by the fact that you have this Applications folder here. This is a shortcut to your Applications folder. Also known as an alias. There's a little curved arrow at the bottom. So if I were to double click on this this will open up my Applications folder. So this is a shortcut to get to that Applications folder. What it's doing there is to make it easier for me to install this app. I could drag this app to my Applications folder. As a matter of fact you could drag it to the sidebar right here to your Applications folder. But I can also drag it to this shortcut to the Applications folder. So it's just a way to make it easier to get this file to your Applications folder. So to properly install Goggle ChromeI would just drag and drop in there. 
Now each app looks a little different. If I double click on Firefox here it will open up the disk image. Now you can see in the Finder sidebar here I've got that Goggle Chrome disk image and I also have a Firefox disk image. Now look at what Firefox does. They do a nice color background to this disk image location. They have the app here. They have this little curvy colored arrow and there's the shortcut to the Applications folder. So again I can drag this to the Applications folder or any other way to get into the Applications folder that I want. This is just the most convenient route. When I drag it in there it will copy this application into my Applications folder. 
Now let's checkout my Applications folder. When I look at that and I look through the contents I will find Firefox right there and I will find Goggle Chrome also right there. So it has successfully installed those in my Applications folder. 
The next thing I want to do is I want to close these disk images. I don't need them opened anymore. They have served their purpose. So I could click the little eject button next to each one in the sidebar. Now I have closed those out. Now to run these applications simply double click on them here inside of the Applications folder. I can also go to Launchpad. I can search for them there and I could click on them to run them. I could also just use Spotlight. So Command Space and then search for the app. Hit Return to run it there. 
But a lot of times we want these in our Dock. To get them into the Dock all you need to do is with the Applications folder just drag and drop them in the left side of the Dock. That's before the first line on the right there. So drag them in here and I could drag this one here. Now I can close the Applications folder and I can run these applications from the Dock.
Now what about what's left in my Downloads folder. If I look in the Downloads folder there I can see those disk images. I don't need them anymore. So I can select those and drag them to the Trash and get rid of them.
I'm always asked about uninstalling apps as well. As far as uninstalling a third party app is concerned you should always check the support website for that app to see if there are any special uninstall instructions. But in most cases if you installed the app using this drag and drop method, uninstalling it is just as easy. Just drag from the Applications folder into the Trash and it removes the app.

Comments: 6 Responses to “Understanding How To Install Mac Apps Downloaded From Web Sites”

Jim Curtin

3 weeks ago

Often, when I drag an application to the trash folder, while the app is deleted, the Application Support files associated with the app, as well as preference files, container/group container files are not deleted. Do you have any suggestions as to how to completely remove the entire app and its associated files? Thank you.

Gary Rosenzweig

Jim: This is becoming less and less of an issue. With Catalina, apps are supposed to put everything they use IN the app. So there shouldn’t be much left over when you toss it. There may be some preferences, but those files would be very tiny and not worth worrying about. Usually if an app does install something else, then it also includes an official uninstaller and you should use that.

Dave Hunter

I tried to unload an updated version of Flash but the computer refused to open it as being from an unapproved developer. Should I just accept that as a valid warning and stop trying?
Thanks for great tips!

Dave: Did you get that updater from going to Adobe’s actual site (not following a link) and download the real installer? The actual installer wouldn’t say that.

Karl

So you can’t just double click anywhere to automatically install programs, the only way to do it is to drag and drop the program into the applications folder? Seems counterintuitive to me. The average user isn’t going to know that. There should be a “click here to install” icon somewhere in there.

Karl: You can if that is how that piece of software is set up. The developer can build an installer, sure. Many do. Some just use this method because it is all that is needed. Of course the “average user” is going to be using the Mac App Store, not a download.

Understanding How To Install Mac Apps Downloaded From Web Sites

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