How to uninstall Eclipse on Mac

Save and close your open projects before you start. Eclipse keeps them in the workspace folder you chose, or accepted, the first time it launched, and removing the app does not touch that folder. This guide covers Eclipse IDE downloaded from eclipse.org (tested here as Eclipse IDE for Eclipse Committers) and the matching Homebrew cask eclipse-ide.

Quit Eclipse

Save your work in every open project, then quit Eclipse from its application menu. Check Activity Monitor for a lingering eclipse process before moving on. A JDK you installed separately, through a package manager or a manual install, is independent of Eclipse and this guide does not touch it.

Move Eclipse to Trash

Open the Applications folder in Finder and move Eclipse to Trash. If macOS says it is in use, quit the lingering process first rather than deleting its files while it runs.

Review the preferences file

Press Shift + Command + G in Finder and check the paths below.

Location What it holds What to do
~/Library/Preferences/epp.package.committers.plist The app's macOS preferences file, named after this package's bundle id Safe to remove; it holds no project files
Your Eclipse workspace (the folder you chose when Eclipse first opened) Projects, the .metadata folder and workspace-level settings Keep it while you still need those projects; back it up and delete it yourself only when you are done with them
~/.eclipse (if present on your Mac) A folder Eclipse packages can share; Homebrew's eclipse-java cask lists it in its own zap list This test did not create it; if you have one, another Eclipse package may still use it, so check before removing

If you installed it with Homebrew

The eclipse-ide cask's zap list has one entry, ~/Library/Preferences/epp.package.committers.plist, the same preferences file as above. Running brew uninstall --cask --zap eclipse-ide yourself removes the app and that file and nothing else. To keep the preferences file, leave --zap out:

brew uninstall --cask eclipse-ide

When Mole removes a Homebrew-installed Eclipse, it runs --zap only if nothing in the zap list is a row you left unticked, sits outside ~/Library, or belongs to another installed app. Here the one entry is a row Mole selects by default, so --zap runs unless you untick the preferences file, in which case Mole leaves --zap out and the file stays.

Check the result

pgrep -il eclipse
ls -d /Applications/Eclipse.app
ls -d "$HOME/Library/Preferences/epp.package.committers.plist"
ls -d "$HOME/.eclipse"
  • No output from pgrep means no Eclipse process is running. A listed process means Eclipse or a helper is still open; quit it before deleting more.
  • ls -d /Applications/Eclipse.app printing the path means the app is still there; "No such file or directory" means it is gone.
  • The preferences check works the same way: a printed path means the file survived, which is fine if you chose to keep it.
  • ls -d "$HOME/.eclipse" printing "No such file or directory" matches this test. If the folder exists, it was created by another Eclipse package or an earlier install, so leave it until you know which.

What Mole lists

For Eclipse IDE installed from eclipse.org's own download:

  • ~/Library/Preferences/epp.package.committers.plist is listed and selected by default.
  • Your Eclipse workspace is not listed. Mole does not scan for project folders, wherever you placed them.
  • ~/.eclipse is not listed.

What this test covered

Eclipse IDE for Eclipse Committers 4.41.0 was downloaded from eclipse.org, copied into Applications, and removed on September 21, 2026 with Mole 1.15 Preview (build 282) and Full Disk Access, in a run with nine other developer apps. The uninstall took the .app and its preferences file, with no rows left for review. Eclipse did not write ~/.eclipse in this test, and no workspace or project was created, so the record says nothing about project files. The Homebrew cask was not tested.