How to uninstall Cherry Studio on Mac

Cherry Studio keeps your conversations, assistants, knowledge bases, attached files and provider settings, API keys included, in ~/Library/Application Support/CherryStudio, and it keeps downloaded helper tools and MCP settings in a second folder in your home folder, ~/.cherrystudio. Back up what you want to keep before you remove anything. These steps cover the Mac app downloaded from Cherry Studio's site or GitHub releases and the Homebrew cask cherry-studio.

Back up your conversations first

Open Cherry Studio and go to Settings › Data Settings. Cherry Studio can back up to a local folder, WebDAV or S3-compatible storage, and its data settings page says a full backup contains conversation history, assistants, knowledge bases with their vector data, notes and attachments, preferences and provider configuration. The backup also carries your API keys, so keep the file somewhere private.

If you would rather copy the folder itself, quit Cherry Studio first so nothing is still being written, then copy ~/Library/Application Support/CherryStudio to another drive. The same page and the storage page name this folder as the default data location; if you moved it in Settings › Data Settings, copy the folder you chose instead.

Quit Cherry Studio and remove the app

  1. Quit Cherry Studio from its application menu.
  2. Search Activity Monitor for Cherry Studio and check that the app and its helper processes have exited.
  3. Move Cherry Studio from the Applications folder to the Trash.

Removing the app does not revoke API keys you created with model providers. If you no longer want a key to work, delete it in that provider's own console.

Where Cherry Studio keeps its data

Open these locations in Finder with Shift + Command + G.

Location What it holds What to do
~/Library/Application Support/CherryStudio Conversations, assistants, knowledge bases, files, settings and API keys Keep it until your backup is verified; remove it only when you are done with Cherry Studio
~/.cherrystudio Tools Cherry Studio downloads, such as bun and uv, plus MCP settings Keep it while you still use Cherry Studio; about 210 MB on a fresh install in this test
~/Library/Logs/CherryStudio App logs Safe to remove after quitting
~/Library/Preferences/com.kangfenmao.CherryStudio.plist App preferences Safe to remove for a clean reinstall

The first folder comes from Cherry Studio's documentation. ~/.cherrystudio is not described in those pages; its contents above are what this test found on disk.

Check the result

Run these read-only commands in Terminal after the app is in the Trash:

pgrep -lf "Cherry Studio.app"
ls -d "$HOME/Library/Application Support/CherryStudio" ~/.cherrystudio
du -sh ~/.cherrystudio
  • No output from pgrep means no process is running from Cherry Studio.app. A listed process means the app or a helper is still open; quit it before deleting data.
  • ls -d printing a path means that folder is still on this Mac, which is expected if you chose to keep it. "No such file or directory" means it is gone.
  • du -sh shows how much space ~/.cherrystudio takes, which helps you decide whether it is worth keeping for a reinstall.

For other local AI tools and their storage, see How to Delete Ollama and LM Studio Models on Mac.

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 cherry-studio cask's zap list includes ~/Library/Application Support/CherryStudio, which holds your conversations and keys, along with the updater cache, logs, preferences, HTTP storage and saved window state. Running brew uninstall --cask --zap cherry-studio yourself moves all of them to the Trash, whatever you ticked in Mole. The zap list does not include ~/.cherrystudio. The cask also links a cherry-studio command into Homebrew's bin folder, which Homebrew removes with the app.

To keep your data, back it up first, or remove only the app:

brew uninstall --cask cherry-studio

What Mole lists

This is how Mole handles Cherry Studio installed from the official download:

  • ~/Library/Application Support/CherryStudio is listed but not selected, because it holds your conversations and keys. The rebuildable caches inside it, Cache, Code Cache, GPUCache, DawnGraphiteCache, DawnWebGPUCache, Crashpad and blob_storage, are separate rows selected by default.
  • ~/.cherrystudio is listed but not selected.
  • ~/Library/Logs/CherryStudio, the preferences file, the app's recent-documents list and its temporary cache folders are selected by default.

What this test covered

On September 26, 2026, Cherry Studio 2.1.3 was installed from the official package Homebrew's cask points to, checked against its checksum and copied into Applications, launched once without signing in, and uninstalled with a development build of Mole with every listed row ticked, including the ones Mole leaves unchecked. Mole's Status page showed Cherry Studio as one row with eight processes. The app (1.13 GB), ~/Library/Application Support/CherryStudio (4.5 MB), ~/.cherrystudio (217 MB) and the caches, logs and preferences, 15 items in all, went to the Trash, and none of them was still on disk afterwards. No login item or launch agent appeared. No conversations, knowledge bases or API keys were created, and the Homebrew cask was not uninstalled. An earlier test on September 21, 2026 removed the app, the support folder and the logs, and ~/.cherrystudio (229 MB) was not listed in that run.