Uninstall Chromium on Mac

Export bookmarks and any profile data you cannot re-create. Chromium’s user-data folder holds history, bookmarks, cookies and extensions; having sync enabled is not proof every item was uploaded. If another Chromium build uses the same profile, removing that folder affects it too. This guide covers the official Chromium snapshot tested on September 17, 2026.

Quit and remove the app

Quit all Chromium windows and background processes. Move Chromium.app from Applications to Trash. Keep the profile directory while checking your backup and any other Chromium install. The browser executable and its profile have different lifetimes. If you want to remove the profile later, first open the exported bookmarks and inspect every profile folder. A custom profile passed with --user-data-dir is outside the default path and needs its own ownership check.

Review the app's own data

Chromium documents ~/Library/Application Support/Chromium/Default as its default Mac profile. The Homebrew cask also lists the parent profile folder, ~/Library/Caches/Chromium, preferences and saved state. Cache can be regenerated; the profile contains personal data. Do not treat ~/Library/Application Support/Google as a Chromium leftover. The official product page describes the product; the Homebrew cask supplies the installation and zap paths. Keep anything you cannot identify until its owner is clear.

If you installed it with Homebrew

To remove the cask without applying its whole zap list, use:

brew uninstall --cask chromium

Homebrew's separate brew uninstall --cask --zap chromium also acts on every path in the cask's zap list. It does not consult Mole's selected files. Review the paths above before choosing that action. Mole skips Homebrew zap for browser casks and uses its own selected-remnant path.

Check the result

These Terminal commands only inspect the current state:

pgrep -il Chromium
ls -ld ~/Library/Application\ Support/Chromium ~/Library/Caches/Chromium

No pgrep output means no matching process; a hit means the browser may still run. A listed profile is an expected retained item, while a listed cache is surviving cache. ls reports “No such file or directory” for absent directories; permission errors do not prove removal.

What Mole lists

Mole lists the Chromium profile but leaves it unselected. Exact cache and preference rows are selected by default. Mole skips Homebrew’s browser zap, because that cask would delete the profile independently of Mole’s checkboxes.

What this test covered

On September 17, 2026, the Chromium sample came from an official snapshot; the Homebrew cask was disabled because it fails the Gatekeeper check. Mole removed the Caches/Chromium row and retained Application Support/Chromium under its browser-data policy. This record does not verify Homebrew installation, signed-in sync, or a custom --user-data-dir.