How to fully uninstall Chrome on Mac
Deleting Chrome.app leaves behind your entire profile — bookmarks, history, passwords, extensions, and gigabytes of cached data. Here's how to remove everything.
8+
Leftover locations
500 MB–3 GB
Typical leftover size
Yes — unless deleted
Profile data kept?
What Chrome leaves behind
Chrome stores an enormous amount of data outside its app bundle. The biggest piece is your entire user profile, which contains your browsing history, saved passwords, bookmarks, installed extensions, cookies, and more:
| Location | Contents |
|---|---|
| ~/Library/Application Support/Google/Chrome/ | All Chrome profiles, passwords, bookmarks, extensions, history |
| ~/Library/Caches/com.google.Chrome/ | Cached web pages, images, scripts |
| ~/Library/Caches/Google/Chrome/ | Additional Google cache data |
| ~/Library/Preferences/com.google.Chrome.plist | Chrome user settings and preferences |
| ~/Library/Saved Application State/com.google.Chrome.savedState/ | Window and tab state |
| ~/Library/Logs/Google/Chrome/ | Chrome diagnostic logs |
| ~/Library/HTTPStorages/com.google.Chrome/ | Web storage data |
| ~/Library/WebKit/com.google.Chrome/ | WebKit browser data |
Note: The ~/Library/Application Support/Google/Chrome/ folder alone can grow to several gigabytes for active users. It survives a standard Chrome uninstall completely intact.
Before you uninstall Chrome
If you want to keep your bookmarks or data, export them first:
- →Bookmarks: Chrome menu → Bookmarks → Bookmark Manager → ⋮ → Export bookmarks
- →Passwords: Chrome menu → Settings → Passwords → ⋮ → Export passwords
- →Sign in to your Google account to sync data to the cloud before removing Chrome
Manual removal (step-by-step)
- 1. Quit ChromePress ⌘Q in Chrome. Make sure it's fully closed (no Dock bounce, no menu bar icon).
- 2. Delete the appOpen /Applications in Finder → drag Google Chrome.app to Trash.
- 3. Delete profile data (if desired)Press ⌘ Shift G → type
~/Library/Application Support/Google/Chrome→ move the Chrome folder to Trash. - 4. Clear cachesGo to
~/Library/Cachesand delete any folder namedcom.google.ChromeorGoogle. - 5. Remove preferencesGo to
~/Library/Preferencesand deletecom.google.Chrome.plist. - 6. Empty TrashWhen you're confident, empty the Trash to permanently free disk space.
Automated removal with Zapper
Zapper scans all 11 Library directories and finds every Chrome file automatically:
- Drop
Google Chrome.apponto Zapper's window. - Zapper scans and lists all leftover files with paths and sizes.
- Deselect profile data (Application Support/Google/Chrome) if you want to keep it.
- Click Zap — files move to Trash safely.