How to uninstall Audacity on Mac

Save or export your Audacity projects before removing the app, and decide whether to keep your settings. Audacity keeps its preferences, plug-in registry and effect presets in ~/Library/Application Support/audacity, and Audacity 4 made a ~/Documents/Audacity4 folder on first launch in the test. Neither is removed when you drag the app to the Trash. These steps cover Audacity 4 from audacityteam.org and the Homebrew cask audacity.

Save projects and presets first

Save open projects and export any audio you need as WAV, FLAC or MP3. Check where your projects live: if you saved them in ~/Documents/Audacity4 or another folder of your own, they stay where they are when you remove the app. If you rely on custom effect presets or a tuned configuration, copy ~/Library/Application Support/audacity somewhere outside Library first.

Quit and remove the app

1. Quit Audacity from its app menu, or press Command + Q while it is active.
2. Search for Audacity in Activity Monitor and confirm it has exited.
3. Move Audacity 4 from Finder's Applications folder to the Trash.

Audacity does not ship a separate Mac uninstaller. Its reset guide explains what the settings files do and how to reset them without uninstalling, if a clean configuration is all you were after.

Where Audacity keeps local data

In Finder, press Shift + Command + G and open each location that exists.

The settings folder comes from Audacity's reset guide; the rest come from the Homebrew cask's zap list. Audio plug-ins under ~/Library/Audio/Plug-Ins are shared by every audio app on the Mac, so leave them unless you know a plug-in was only for Audacity.

Check the result

Run these read-only commands in Terminal:

pgrep -il audacity
ls -d "$HOME/Library/Application Support/audacity" "$HOME/Documents/Audacity4"

• No output from pgrep means Audacity is no longer running. A listed process means it is still open; quit it before touching its folders.
• ls prints each folder that still exists and reports "No such file or directory" for the rest. A surviving Documents/Audacity4 is expected: Homebrew removes it only when it is empty, and Mole never lists it.

If you installed it with Homebrew

The audacity cask quits Audacity before removing it. Its zap list trashes ~/Library/Application Support/audacity, the cache, both preferences files and the saved window state, and it removes ~/Documents/Audacity4 only if that folder is empty. Running brew uninstall --cask --zap audacity yourself does not look at Mole's checkboxes, so copy the settings folder first if you want it. Homebrew Audacity cask

Mole checks the zap list first. Application Support/audacity is unticked by default, so unless you tick it, Mole drops --zap and removes only the app and the rows you selected.

To remove only the app and keep your settings:

brew uninstall --cask audacity

What Mole lists

When you remove it with Mole:

• ~/Library/Application Support/audacity is listed but not selected, because it is named after the app rather than its bundle ID.
• Preferences and saved window state filed under org.audacityteam.audacity4 are selected by default.
• The uninstall scan excludes Documents, including ~/Documents/Audacity4.

What this test covered

On September 17, 2026, Audacity 4 was installed from the Homebrew cask audacity, opened once, then removed with Mole 1.15 Preview (build 272) after granting it Full Disk Access. That build ran the cask's full zap list, which removed the settings folder, cache and preferences, and ~/Documents/Audacity4, 384 KB with content from the first launch, stayed. No projects, recordings or plug-ins were tested, and the direct download from audacityteam.org was not uninstalled in this test.