Third-party developers have the permission to add panes to the bottom row of the System Preferences window in Mac OS X and macOS. This means that as you install and experiment with various apps and utilities, you may accumulate a number of preference panes. There are a few methods for removing ones you no longer require.

How to Delete System Preferences Panes

Here’s how to remove preference panes with a single or double click:

1. Open System Preferences by selecting it from the Apple menu or by clicking its Dock icon.
2. In the System Preferences window, locate the bottom row. It contains the editable preference panes. The remaining preference panes are part of the operating system and cannot be removed.
3. In the bottom row, right-click the pane you wish to delete.
4. From the pop-up menu, select Remove [“Name”] Preference Pane.

Your Mac deletes the preference pane, regardless of its location on the hard drive.

How to Manually Remove Preference Panes

Knowing how to delete a preference pane manually can be beneficial if the standard uninstall method fails, which can occur with poorly written preference panes or those whose file permissions have been set incorrectly.

Here’s how to locate and delete preference panes on your Mac.

1. From the Finder menu bar, click the Mac desktop to activate Finder and select File > New Finder Window.

Additionally, you can open a new Finder window by clicking the Dock’s Finder icon.

2. In the Finder window, in the Locations section of the sidebar, click the name of your computer.
3. To open the Library folder, click on it.
4. Scroll down and select the Preference Panes folder to see which third-party preference panes you can delete.
5. Drag any unwanted panes to the Trash or select them with your mouse and press Delete on your keyboard.