How to fully uninstall Discord on Mac
Dragging Discord to Trash leaves behind Electron caches, chat data, and a background updater that runs at login. Here's how to remove everything.
9+
Leftover locations
500 MB – 2 GB
Typical leftover size
Yes — runs at login
Background updater
What Discord leaves behind
Discord is built on Electron (Chromium), which means it leaves behind a large browser cache, GPU cache, and auto-updater files. The ShipIt updater stages update packages even after you delete the main app, consuming hundreds of megabytes of disk space.
| Location | Contents |
|---|---|
| ~/Library/Application Support/discord/ | Chat history cache, user data, modules, and settings |
| ~/Library/Application Support/Discord/ | Alternative capitalization used by some versions |
| ~/Library/Caches/com.hnc.Discord/ | Electron browser cache and GPU data |
| ~/Library/Caches/com.hnc.Discord.ShipIt/ | Auto-updater staging files |
| ~/Library/Preferences/com.hnc.Discord.plist | App preferences and window state |
| ~/Library/Preferences/com.hnc.Discord.helper.plist | Helper process preferences |
| ~/Library/Saved Application State/com.hnc.Discord.savedState/ | Window positions and UI state |
| ~/Library/Logs/Discord/ | Crash reports and diagnostic logs |
| ~/Library/HTTPStorages/com.hnc.Discord/ | Web storage and cookies |
Manual removal (step-by-step)
- 1. Quit Discord completelyRight-click the Discord icon in the menu bar and choose Quit Discord, or press ⌘Q while Discord is focused.
- 2. Delete the app bundleOpen /Applications in Finder, drag Discord.app to Trash.
- 3. Open Library in FinderPress ⌘ Shift G in Finder and type
~/Library. - 4. Delete these folders/filesNavigate to each location in the table above and delete the Discord files. Use ⌘ Delete to move to Trash.
- 5. Remove the ShipIt updater cacheThe folder
~/Library/Caches/com.hnc.Discord.ShipIt/contains staged update packages. Delete this folder to stop the updater from consuming disk space. - 6. Empty TrashOnce you're confident, empty the Trash to reclaim disk space.
Automated removal with Zapper
Instead of hunting through 9+ directories manually, Zapper finds everything in seconds:
- Before deleting Discord, drop
Discord.apponto Zapper's window. - Zapper scans all 11 Library directories and shows every leftover file with its path and size.
- Review the list, check the files you want to remove, and click Zap.
- Files move to Trash — including the ShipIt updater cache. Restore with ⌘Z if needed.
Discord's auto-updater explained
Discord uses a built-in updater called ShipIt that checks for updates every time the app launches. ShipIt downloads update packages and stages them in the Caches directory, ready to be applied on next launch.
Even after deleting Discord.app, these staged update files persist in ~/Library/Caches/com.hnc.Discord.ShipIt/. Because macOS doesn't clean up app caches automatically, these files sit on your disk indefinitely — often consuming several hundred megabytes.
~/Library/Caches/com.hnc.Discord.ShipIt/
Delete this folder to remove all staged update packages. Zapper detects and removes it automatically during the scan.