Uninstall AltTab on Mac

Quit AltTab before removing it, and plan to revoke its Accessibility and Screen Recording permissions afterward: macOS keeps those grants even after the app is gone, until you remove them yourself. These steps cover the official download from alt-tab.app and the Homebrew cask alt-tab, which install the same app.

Quit AltTab and remove the app

Quit AltTab from its menu bar icon or menu, then move AltTab from Applications to the Trash. If you turned on "Launch at login" in AltTab's preferences, check System Settings › General › Login Items & Extensions afterward; AltTab can register a login item there, and it does not always disappear the moment the app is deleted.

Where AltTab keeps its data

Remove the Accessibility and Screen Recording permissions

AltTab needs Accessibility to read window titles and switch focus, and Screen Recording to draw window thumbnails, as explained in AltTab's own FAQ; both stay granted in System Settings after you delete the app, since macOS does not clear a permission just because the app that requested it is gone. Open System Settings › Privacy & Security › Accessibility, select AltTab, and click the − button; repeat under Privacy & Security › Screen Recording. If you only see a stale, grayed-out AltTab entry with no app to click, that confirms the app itself is already removed and the row is safe to remove the same way.

Check the result

Run these read-only commands in Terminal:

pgrep -il alt-tab
launchctl list | grep -i lwouis
ls -d ~/Library/Application\ Support/com.lwouis.alt-tab-macos

No output from pgrep means AltTab is not running. No output from launchctl list means no AltTab login job is loaded in your session; a com.lwouis.alt-tab-macos line means the launch-at-login job is still registered, so check Login Items & Extensions. The ls command reports whether the settings folder is still on this Mac; "No such file or directory" means it is gone.

For other apps that leave a launch agent running after their own icon is deleted, see App Still Running After Uninstall on Mac? Find Login Items and Launch Tasks.

If you installed it with Homebrew

The next Mole update will skip --zap when its list reaches unchecked or shared data, or cannot be fully checked. Mole will still clean the leftovers you selected. Preview 290 does not include this protection.

Mole Preview 290 removes a Homebrew-installed AltTab with brew uninstall --cask --zap alt-tab, and the zap list covers every row in the table above (Application Support, both caches, all three preferences files, the launch agent, HTTPStorages, and the cookie file), whatever you select in Mole. If you skip zap, the app is removed but its launch-at-login job is not, so check Login Items & Extensions afterward:

brew uninstall --cask alt-tab

What Mole lists

This describes Mole 1.15 (currently in Preview):

• ~/Library/Application Support/com.lwouis.alt-tab-macos, both cache folders, and all three preferences files are selected by default; they are named after AltTab's bundle identifier, which Mole treats as the app's own data.
• For a Homebrew install, Mole Preview 290 runs brew uninstall --cask --zap alt-tab, and the zap step removes the same rows plus the launch agent, HTTPStorages, and cookie file, regardless of what you selected.
• Mole does not manage the Accessibility or Screen Recording permission entries; those stay in System Settings until you remove them yourself.

What this test covered

AltTab was installed through the Homebrew cask and uninstalled on September 17, 2026, with a development build of Mole. Homebrew's zap step deleted AltTab's data before Mole's own leftover scan ran, so the run confirms the zap list removes those files but does not show what Mole selects by default for a direct download. The official download, a real launch-at-login job, and the Accessibility/Screen Recording permission state were not part of this test.