How to uninstall Clop on Mac

Clop is the Low-Tech Guys' menu bar optimiser for images, video, PDFs and the clipboard, from lowtechguys.com/clop. Two things are worth knowing before you remove it. By default Clop optimises in place: per its changelog, it moves the original into Clop's backup folder and replaces the file with the optimised one, so files it already optimised stay optimised after the app is gone, and the originals sit in the backup folder, whose location you can change in the app. Open that folder from the app menu and copy out anything you want to keep; Clop also cleans old backups up on a schedule. Second, your license files live in ~/Library/Application Support/Clop, so keep your license key or email to activate again after a reinstall. This guide covers the official disk image and the Homebrew cask clop.

Quit and remove the app

  1. Quit Clop from its menu bar icon, since it runs without a Dock icon. Clop only watches your clipboard and folders while it is running. In the test, Status grouped three processes under one row: Clop and two copies of macOS's Metal shader compiler.
  2. If you turned on launch at login in Clop's settings, turn it off, or remove Clop in System Settings › General › Login Items & Extensions. The test registered no login item or launch agent.
  3. Open Finder, go to Applications and drag Clop to the Trash.

Where the data lives

Press Shift + Command + G in Finder to open each path. Skip any path that is not on your Mac.

Location What it holds What to do
Clop's backup folder, opened from the app menu The originals of files Clop optimised in place; its default location is not documented and you can change it Check its path first and copy out what you need. If it sits inside one of the folders below, those originals go with that folder.
~/Library/Application Support/Clop Clop's settings and license files, 12 KB in the test Remove. Mole lists it for review and selects it by default.
~/Library/Application Scripts/com.lowtechguys.Clop Clop's script folder, measured at 339 MB in the test Remove. Mole selects it by default.
~/Library/Preferences/com.lowtechguys.Clop.plist Preferences Remove. Mole selects it by default.
~/Library/Caches/Clop, ~/Library/Caches/com.lowtechguys.Clop and ~/Library/Caches/SentryCrash/Clop Caches and crash-report state Remove. Mole selects them by default.
~/Library/HTTPStorages/com.lowtechguys.Clop and ~/Library/HTTPStorages/com.lowtechguys.Clop.binarycookies Network storage and cookies Remove. Mole selects them by default.
The com.lowtechguys.Clop folder inside the folder that getconf DARWIN_USER_CACHE_DIR prints Mole's temporary cache row, 270 KB in the test Remove. Mole selects it by default.
~/.clop-debug-logs Debug logs Remove. Mole lists it for review but does not select it.
~/Library/Application Scripts/com.lowtechguys.Clop.CLI A link left from the command line tool; its target was already gone in the test Move to the Trash if you see it. Mole does not list it.

Check the result

pgrep -il clop
launchctl list | grep -i lowtechguys
ls -d /Applications/Clop.app ~/Library/Application\ Support/Clop ~/Library/Application\ Scripts/com.lowtechguys.Clop* ~/.clop-debug-logs
  • No output from pgrep means Clop is not running. A printed line is a process still alive; quit it, or restart the Mac once.
  • No output from launchctl means no Low-Tech Guys job is loaded for your user. A line naming com.lowtechguys.Clop means Clop is still registered; check Login Items & Extensions.
  • For ls -d, "No such file or directory" means that path is gone. A printed path is still on disk; the .CLI link is the one that can survive an uninstall.

If you installed it with Homebrew

The Low-Tech Guys' site offers brew install clop, so this is a common route.

brew uninstall --cask clop

The cask has no uninstall step, so this command removes the app only. Its zap list names ~/.clop-debug-logs, both Application Scripts folders (com.lowtechguys.Clop and com.lowtechguys.Clop.FinderOptimiser), ~/Library/Application Support/Clop, the caches, ~/Library/Containers/com.lowtechguys.Clop.FinderOptimiser, a Clop folder of iCloud sync tokens under ~/Library/Daemon Containers, the network storage and the preferences file. Running brew uninstall --cask --zap clop yourself deletes all of it, your license files in ~/Library/Application Support/Clop included, and does not read Mole's checkboxes. ~/.clop-debug-logs is outside ~/Library, so Mole never runs this cask's zap and removes the rows you selected itself. Neither command touches the files Clop already optimised in place; a backup folder that sits inside one of the zap paths is deleted with it. The Homebrew install was not tested.

What Mole lists

Mole selects the app, the preferences file, ~/Library/Application Scripts/com.lowtechguys.Clop, the three cache folders, both network storage entries and the temporary cache row. It lists ~/Library/Application Support/Clop for review and selects it by default, and lists ~/.clop-debug-logs for review without selecting it. Mole does not track the backup folder as a row of its own, so originals inside a folder Mole lists leave with that folder, and it does not list the files Clop optimised.

What this test covered

On November 9, 2026, the test downloaded Clop 3.6.7 (a Universal disk image) from the Low-Tech Guys' site, whose checksum matched the Homebrew cask, copied the app to Applications without running brew install and opened it once. It then quit the app and removed it with a source-built Mole with every review row ticked. Mole moved the app and ten rows to the Trash. What was left is the dangling Application Scripts/com.lowtechguys.Clop.CLI link, which Mole does not review because its target had already gone, and an iCloud sync token under ~/Library/Daemon Containers, which is system data that Mole does not collect. Status showed one Clop row with 3 processes. Mole detected a Sparkle update feed, and no update was run. No license was activated; optimising files, the command line tool and Finder extension, the backup folder, a Homebrew-managed uninstall and Mole's notarized release build were not tested.