Remove license to downgrade to free version

[Ian Mason]

Hi

I'm handing over my Mac to someone else and I have my licensed copy of BBEdit 12 on it - downloaded, not AppStore version. The user I'm giving the computer to wants to carry on using the free version of BBEdit as a text editor, but I don't want to hand over my license to them - how do I 'downgrade' and 'unlicense' my installation of BBEdit on this machine?

Ian

[TJ Luoma]

I logged in as a different user on my Mac and BBEdit presented itself
as "unregistered" so your best bet is probably to create a new
_administrator_ account, then log in as that user and delete your user
account (which I would recommend anyway).

That should take are of "downgrading" most applications — except Mac
App Store apps, which you should probably just delete. You can find
them by running this command in Terminal:

find /Applications -iname _MASReceipt -type d -maxdepth 3 -print \
| sed 's#/Contents/_MASReceipt##g' \
| sort -i \
| bbedit --scratchpad

(see how I made that BBEdit-related at the end there? ;-)

Tj


--
TJ Luoma
TJ @ MacStories
Personal Website: luo.ma (aka RhymesWithDiploma.com)
Twitter: @tjluoma

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[TJ Luoma]

That `sort -i` should be `sort -f`

(I always forget that `-i` is "--ignore-nonprinting" not "--ignore-case")

I made a gist of this which includes a with a line-by-line
explanation, for people who don't speak $SHELL

https://gist.github.com/tjluoma/93c625cf860a0153019014920a0fa8d3

Tj

--
TJ Luoma
TJ @ MacStories
Personal Website: luo.ma (aka RhymesWithDiploma.com)
Twitter: @tjluoma

[David Rostenne]

Ian,

Best practice is to wipe the computer.. and set it up as new. Let the person, with your help if needed, set it up from scratch. That makes sure nothing of yours is left on the device.

At that point reinstalling BBEdit will guarantee it is unlicensed.

Feel free to email me off list if you need pointers on the process.

Cheers,

Dave

[Ian Mason]

Hi

Thanks both - was trying to avoid a complete wipe of the Mac because of the extra work involved in setting it all up again for someone who is not that Mac literate :) Not too much of my really personal stuff on this Mac because it's really been for work use only and it's going to someone else to use for essentially the same purpose!

Guess I'll test creating a new user account first and see if that leaves BBEdit unregistered for them, then I should be able to copy some local data to the new user and delete my existing account. I have deleted most of the other apps I need to but had noticed that just trashing and re-installing BBEdit on the same user account still left it licensed. App Store stuff has been deleted and will not be re-installable without re-purchase because I'll be signing the AppleID I'm using out of all the services.

Ian

[Patrick Woolsey]

On 5/22/19 at 9:31 AM, i...@nntk.net (Ian Mason) wrote:

>Thanks both - was trying to avoid a complete wipe of the Mac
>because of the extra work involved in setting it all up again
>for someone who is not that Mac literate :) Not too much of my
>really personal stuff on this Mac because it's really been for
>work use only and it's going to someone else to use for
>essentially the same purpose!
>

In the general case, I strongly second Dave Rostenne's
recommendation that you wipe the machine's drive and perform a
factory-fresh OS install.

For this very specific purpose, you can remove BBEdit's license
info from your login account by entering the following Terminal command:

defaults delete com.barebones.bbedit


[PS: TJ Luoma's suggestion of making a new user account and then
deleting your existing account will certainly also work for the
latter purpose. :-) ]


Regards,

Patrick Woolsey
==
Bare Bones Software, Inc. <https://www.barebones.com/>

[Ian Mason]

Thanks Patrick - that has certainly worked a treat! I think I will also be going down the path of creating a new user account. I understand the benefit and advisability of a complete wipe and certainly would go through that process if there was any of my personal (aside from work) data on the machine!

Ian