Help · Guides · Pangalin Space Manager
How to reset an app without reinstalling it.
When an app keeps crashing, won't sign in or has muddled settings, starting fresh often fixes it. Reset (keep app) moves the app's settings, caches and support files that you tick to the Trash and keeps the app, so it opens as if newly installed.
Resetting removes the app's own data: preferences, saved windows and, for some apps, documents, libraries or downloaded models kept in its support folders. Check the list carefully, and keep a backup of anything you'd miss.
Reset an app
- Quit the app you want to reset. Pangalin Space Manager won't reset an app that's running.
- Click Apps in the sidebar (⌘4), find the app on Installed and click Uninstall…. This opens the review; nothing happens yet.
- Check the list. It's the same one an uninstall shows, grouped by kind with counts and sizes, and includes the app's files in the Mac-wide /Library and its hidden folders. Untick anything you want to keep.
- Click Reset (keep app), next to Move … to Trash. The ticked files move to the Trash straight away; there's no second confirmation.
- Open the app. It starts with its first-run settings.
What goes to the Trash, and what stays
- Goes: only the rows you left ticked, such as its preferences, caches, Application Support folder, container, saved state, logs and login items.
- Stays: the app itself, whether or not its row is ticked, and the background items built into it.
- Stays: anything unticked, anything under Kept: shared with other apps, installer receipts, and the advice rows that Also look for login and background items adds.
- The privacy permissions you gave the app aren't reset. That only happens when you uninstall it.
What starts unticked is the same as for an uninstall: plug-ins, files matched only by name, hidden folders, licence files and AI models. See Uninstall an app for the full list. Files in the Mac-wide /Library are moved by the background helper, or macOS asks for your administrator password if the helper isn't set up.
If nothing is ticked, Reset (keep app) can't be clicked. If something you ticked couldn't be moved, an alert, Some items weren't moved, says what stayed and why.
Changed your mind?
- While Pangalin Space Manager is open: choose Edit › Undo Move to Trash (⌥⌘Z) to put the files back. Quit the app first, so it doesn't write new settings over them.
- Later: open the Trash and drag the files back out to where they were. Finder's Put Back isn't offered for files an app moves to the Trash, so check History (⌘7) for where each one came from.
- The space comes back when you empty the Trash. Emptying the Trash is permanent.
Your free 5 GB
A reset counts toward your free 5 GB per Mac in the same way as removing leftovers: by what actually went to the Trash, once it has worked. After that, a licence is $25 a year. With Preview only on, nothing is changed.
Related guides
- Uninstall an app with Pangalin Space Manager
- Undo, History and bringing moves back
- Reset a Mac app by hand
Checked against Pangalin Space Manager 3.50.0, 15 October 2026.