How to uninstall Cap on Mac

Cap saves your recordings inside Library by default, in ~/Library/Application Support/so.cap.desktop, next to its settings, and Mole selects that folder by default. Copy the recordings and screenshots you want to keep, or untick that row, before you uninstall. These steps cover the Cap desktop app downloaded from cap.so and the Homebrew cask cap.

Find and copy your recordings

Cap's installation page says that on macOS the settings and the default recordings directory are under ~/Library/Application Support/so.cap.desktop, that a custom recordings folder stays wherever you selected it, and that you should back up local Studio projects before removing application data. In Cap's source code the default folder has two subfolders:

1. Quit Cap so nothing is still being written.
2. In Finder, press Shift + Command + G, open ~/Library/Application Support/so.cap.desktop and copy recordings and screenshots to a folder outside Library or to another drive.
3. If you chose a different recordings folder in Cap's settings, that folder is yours and stays where it is; nothing below touches it.

Videos you shared with Instant Mode are also on Cap's servers. Removing the app does not delete them or your Cap account.

Quit Cap and remove the app

1. Quit Cap from its menu bar icon, then search Activity Monitor for Cap and check that it has exited.
2. Move Cap from the Applications folder to the Trash.
3. Open System Settings › Privacy & Security and remove Cap from Screen & System Audio Recording, Camera and Microphone if you allowed it there. Removing the app does not take those entries away by itself.

Check the result

Run these read-only commands in Terminal:

pgrep -lf Cap.app
ls "$HOME/Library/Application Support/so.cap.desktop"
du -sh "$HOME/Library/Application Support/so.cap.desktop/recordings"

• No output from pgrep means no process is running from Cap.app.
• ls listing recordings or screenshots means Cap's folder, with your recordings, is still on this Mac. "No such file or directory" means the folder is gone; if you did not copy the recordings first, look for them in the Trash before emptying it.
• du -sh shows how much space the recordings take, which helps you decide what to keep.

If you installed it with Homebrew

Mole skips --zap when its list reaches unchecked or shared data, or cannot be fully checked, and still cleans the leftovers you selected.

The cap cask's zap list names ~/Library/Application Support/cap and files under com.cap.desktop: caches, preferences, saved window state and WebKit data. The app tested here wrote its data under so.cap.desktop instead, so brew uninstall --cask --zap cap would not reach the recordings folder above or the other so.cap.desktop folders. They stay on disk for you to decide on in Finder or in Mole's list. To remove only the app:

brew uninstall --cask cap

What Mole lists

This is how Mole handles Cap installed from the official download:

• ~/Library/Application Support/so.cap.desktop is selected by default. Your default recordings and screenshots are inside it, so untick it if you have not copied them.
• ~/Library/Caches/so.cap.desktop, ~/Library/Logs/so.cap.desktop, ~/Library/WebKit/so.cap.desktop and the app's temporary cache folders are selected by default.
• A custom recordings folder you chose in Cap is not listed.

What this test covered

On September 26, 2026, Cap 0.6.0 was installed from the official package Homebrew's cask points to, checked against its checksum and copied into Applications, launched once without signing in, recording anything or granting screen recording, and uninstalled with a development build of Mole with every listed row ticked. Mole's Status page showed Cap as one row with seven processes, including the system WebKit and audio helpers it starts. The app (381 MB) and nine rows, 10 items in all, went to the Trash, and none of them was still on disk afterwards. No login item or launch agent appeared. Mole does not detect an update channel for Cap, which updates itself. No recording existed, so the support folder held only a few kilobytes, and the Homebrew cask was not uninstalled. An earlier test on September 22, 2026 removed the app and its support folder the same way.