How to uninstall CotEditor on Mac

CotEditor's saved documents stay wherever you saved them. Its sandbox container can also hold unsaved document recovery data, settings, custom themes, and syntaxes. Save any documents you want to keep before removing the app. Choose File > Export Settings to export settings, custom themes, and syntaxes, following the official export instructions. This guide's recorded test used the official download, which is sandboxed, as is the version supplied by the Homebrew cask coteditor.

Quit CotEditor and remove the app

1. Save open documents and quit CotEditor. Your saved files are untouched by removing the app.
2. Look for CotEditor in Activity Monitor and confirm it has exited.
3. Remove the app: move CotEditor from Finder's Applications folder to the Trash.

Review its container and support files

CotEditor is sandboxed, so most of its data sits under one container folder. In Finder, press Shift + Command + G and inspect each location below. Skip any that do not exist, and review a folder's contents before moving it to the Trash rather than deleting the parent Library folder.

These locations appear in the Homebrew cask; not every Mac has every entry. CotEditor documents the user scripts folder in its sandbox migration notes.

The cot command-line tool

The official manual installation creates a cot symlink in /usr/local/bin, though you can choose another location. A manually created link can remain after removing the app. Homebrew instead manages a link in its own bin directory, usually /opt/homebrew/bin on Apple Silicon or /usr/local/bin on Intel, and removes it when you uninstall the cask. Before deleting a surviving link, check that its target is the CotEditor app you removed; remove only that link, not the directory.

If you installed it with Homebrew

Mole removes a cask like brew uninstall --cask --zap coteditor, but it skips --zap when its list reaches unchecked or shared data, or cannot be fully checked, and still cleans the leftovers you selected. CotEditor's zap list is its container, application scripts, help caches, a cache folder, a recent-documents shared-file-list entry, and the preferences file; the container holds settings and custom themes, and the scripts folder can hold your own scripts. Running the zap command yourself does not consult Mole's checkboxes. Back up what you want to keep first, or remove only the app:

brew uninstall --cask coteditor

Check the result

After removing the app, run these read-only checks:

pgrep -il coteditor
ls -d ~/Library/Containers/com.coteditor.CotEditor
ls -l /usr/local/bin/cot /opt/homebrew/bin/cot

• No output and no error from pgrep means no matching process was found. A listed process needs review; quit CotEditor if it is still running. An error does not establish that it has exited.
• A printed container path means the folder remains, not that particular files are inside it. "No such file or directory" means it was not found at that path. A permission error means the check could not read it; inspect it in Finder without treating that error as proof of a specific cause.
• A cot link may be broken after the app is removed; inspect the target shown by ls -l. A missing-path error means no entry exists at that location, while a permission error leaves the result unknown. If you chose a different location, inspect that too.

What Mole lists

When uninstalling CotEditor, Mole lists the following items where found:

• ~/Library/Containers/com.coteditor.CotEditor is selected by default. Save documents and export the settings you want to keep before removing it.
• ~/Library/Application Scripts/com.coteditor.CotEditor, the com.coteditor.CotEditor.plist preferences where present, the cache folder, and the recent-documents shared-file-list entry are selected by default. Back up your Scripts menu scripts or deselect that folder if you want to keep them.
• The recorded check found no CotEditor launch agent or login item. Manually created cot links are outside Mole's remnant list; check them separately. Homebrew-managed links are removed by the cask uninstall.

What this test covered

CotEditor was installed from its official download and uninstalled on September 19, 2026 with the official Mole build 277 and Full Disk Access enabled. It had no display-name Application Support folder. Moving its sandbox container failed with a permission error, leaving roughly 40 KB in place; the record does not establish the underlying cause. The running app was visible by name-sorting the Status process list, and a separate ps measurement was about 122 MB. The check found no CotEditor launch agent or login item.