by In this first column of 2014, I address how to get a list of apps on an iOS device, show some tagging tricks for multidisc sets, and offer suggestions for iTunes controllers.
Q: Like many of us, I expect, I have a lot of apps in my iTunes library that I no longer need. I’d like to clean them out so I don’t waste time, disk space, and bandwidth updating them, and cut down on clutter and confusion. I have two iOS devices, and would like to know of a method to get a list of the apps on each, combine the lists, and toss out anything not on them. Do you have any suggestions for an easy way to do this?
You can see all the apps installed on a given iOS device in Settings > General > Usage, but I don’t think that’s what you want. I can think of two ways to get a list to determine which apps you can delete. The first is to back up your iOS devices; if you have them set to back up to iCloud, you need to do a backup to your Mac. Next choose Go > Go to Folder in the Finder and enter ~/Library/Application Support/MobileSync/Backup. In that folder you’ll see other folders with long alphanumeric names; there should be one for each of your iOS devices. Look for an info.plist file inside one of these folders.
Copy that file to your desktop and then open it with a text editor such as Apple’s TextEdit. Near the top of the file you’ll see something like this, showing the name of your device:
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