How to uninstall Anytype on Mac

Anytype keeps your vault on this Mac, encrypted, and only your 12-word Key can open it again. Anytype's data erasure page is blunt about it: Anytype cannot recover a lost Key. Save the Key and export the spaces you care about before you remove anything. This guide covers Anytype from its official download and from the Homebrew cask anytype, plus the browser connection files Anytype writes outside its own folders.

Save your Key and export your spaces

• Keep a copy of your 12-word Key somewhere safe and outside Anytype. Without it you cannot sign back in on a new install.
• Export each space you want to keep. Anytype's export guide says to open the space's settings (called Channel Settings in the current docs), choose Export, and pick Markdown for other apps or Any-Block to bring it back into Anytype. Turn on Include files if you want attachments. Chats and discussions are not part of an export.
• Check how the vault syncs. Anytype's sync page says every account gets a remote backup node, while local-only mode keeps data on the device and nowhere else. If you use local-only mode, the folder on this Mac is the only copy.

Removing the app does not delete your vault from Anytype's backup node or from your other devices. Deleting the vault itself is a separate action in the vault settings, and Anytype says it becomes permanent after 30 days.

Quit Anytype and remove the app

1. Quit Anytype from the Anytype menu. In the recorded test it ran eight processes, including an anytypeHelper process from inside the app, and Mole's Status page folded them into one Anytype row. They all exit when you quit.
2. Search Activity Monitor for Anytype and check that nothing is left.
3. Move Anytype from Finder's Applications folder to the Trash.

The test did not show a login item or background item for Anytype.

Where Anytype keeps its data

Anytype's docs say the default location is picked per operating system but do not name the Mac folder. The desktop app's source puts vault data in a data folder inside its app data folder (util.ts), and that app data folder was ~/Library/Application Support/anytype on the test Mac.

Remove the browser connection files

Anytype writes a file named com.anytype.desktop.json into the NativeMessagingHosts folder of several browsers. In the recorded test it was in Chrome, Chrome Beta, Chrome Dev, Chrome Canary, Edge Beta, Edge Dev, Edge Canary, Vivaldi, Helium and Firefox. The file name is not Anytype's app id, so Mole reads each file and claims the copies whose path points into Anytype.app, as described under What Mole lists; the recorded run came before that and left nine copies. List what is left with this read-only command:

find ~/Library/Application\ Support -maxdepth 4 -path '*NativeMessagingHosts/com.anytype.desktop.json' 2>/dev/null

Each printed line is one leftover file. Open its folder in Finder with Shift + Command + G and move that one file to the Trash. Leave the rest of the NativeMessagingHosts folder alone, since other apps keep their own files there. No output means no copy is left. If you used an Anytype browser extension, remove it from the browser as well.

Check the result

pgrep -il anytype
ls -d "$HOME/Library/Application Support/anytype"

• No output from pgrep means Anytype is not running. A listed process means the app or its helper is still open; quit it first.
• ls -d printing the path means the local vault folder is still there, which is expected if you kept it. "No such file or directory" means it is gone. If you moved your vault, check that folder too.

If you installed it with Homebrew

The anytype cask's zap list is ~/Library/Application Support/anytype, the preferences file, the recent-documents list, and the com.anytype.desktop.json file in Chromium, Chrome, Chrome Beta, Chrome Dev, Chrome Canary, Edge, Edge Beta, Edge Dev, Edge Canary, Firefox and Vivaldi. With the default Vault Data Location, that first folder is your local vault. brew uninstall --cask --zap anytype moves all of them to the Trash whatever you ticked in Mole. To keep the vault folder, remove only the app:

brew uninstall --cask anytype

Mole adds --zap only when every path on the zap list sits inside ~/Library, none of them touches a row you left unchecked, and no other installed app claims them. ~/Library/Application Support/anytype is listed but not selected by default, so Mole leaves --zap out unless you tick it.

What Mole lists

For Anytype from the official download:

• ~/Library/Application Support/anytype is listed but not selected. The cache folders inside it (Cache, Code Cache, GPUCache, DawnGraphiteCache, DawnWebGPUCache, blob_storage) and its logs folder are separate rows selected by default.
• The preferences file, the recent-documents list and the temporary caches filed under com.anytype.anytype are selected by default.
• Every com.anytype.desktop.json whose path points into Anytype.app is listed and selected by default, in each browser folder including Firefox. A file with that name that points somewhere else is not claimed.
• A Vault Data Location you chose outside the default folder is not listed.

What this test covered

On September 26, 2026, Anytype 0.57.0 was installed from its official disk image, opened once without signing in, and uninstalled with a development build of Mole with every row ticked. Status showed one Anytype row with eight processes using about 413 MB. Fourteen items went to the Trash, including the app, ~/Library/Application Support/anytype (1.9 MB, with no vault since nobody signed in) and the Firefox connection file. Nine com.anytype.desktop.json files stayed behind, in Chrome, Chrome Beta, Chrome Dev, Chrome Canary, Edge Beta, Edge Dev, Edge Canary, Vivaldi and Helium. No login item or background job appeared. Earlier, on September 20 and 21, 2026, Anytype 0.56.5 from the official download was removed the same way, and those browser files were left then too. Signing in, vault content, sync and a Homebrew install were not tested.