How to uninstall Element on Mac

Element keeps your end-to-end encryption keys and a local copy of your message history on this Mac. Before you remove it, make sure you have a recovery key, because without one, or another signed-in device, you can lose access to your encrypted history. Removing the app does not delete your Matrix account, and the account stays on your homeserver whatever you do with this Mac. This guide covers Element Desktop downloaded from element.io and the Homebrew cask element; both install Element.app with the bundle ID im.riot.app.

Save your recovery key first

  1. Click your profile picture at the top left, open All Settings, then Encryption. Older versions call this area Security & Privacy › Secure Backup.
  2. In the Backup section, choose Get recovery key if you have never set one up. Change recovery key means a key already exists; confirm you still have it before going further.
  3. Store the key in a password manager or another safe place off this Mac.

Element's documentation describes the recovery key as what lets you verify new sessions and keep access to your encrypted chat history and identity if you lose every device you are signed in on (Element: how to ensure you have a recovery key). Your account password is a separate thing and does not replace it.

Sign out, then remove the app

  1. In All Settings › Sessions, open the three-dot menu and sign out of the current session. This ends this Mac's session on your homeserver; you can also remove it later from the same list on another device (Element: Sessions).
  2. Quit Element from its menu and check Activity Monitor that no Element process is left.
  3. Move Element.app from Applications to the Trash.

Deleting the account is a different, permanent action: Settings › General › Deactivate account. Element warns that a deactivated account cannot be reactivated and its username cannot be reused (Element: deactivating a Matrix account). You do not need to do this to uninstall.

Where Element keeps its data

Location What it holds What to do
~/Library/Application Support/Element Element Desktop's profile: config.json, the signed-in session, its local encryption keys and message cache Keep it until your recovery key is saved; remove it once you no longer use Element on this Mac
~/Library/Application Support/Element-<profile> The same data for each extra profile you started with --profile Check each one separately
~/Library/Preferences/im.riot.app.plist App preferences Remove with the app
~/Library/Caches/im.riot.app, ~/Library/Logs/Riot, ~/Library/Saved Application State/im.riot.app.savedState Caches, logs and window state named in the Homebrew zap list Remove with the app if present

The config.json location and the --profile naming come from Element Desktop's documentation. A --profile-dir profile lives wherever you pointed it.

Check the result

After the app is in the Trash, run these read-only commands:

pgrep -lf Element.app
ls -d "$HOME/Library/Application Support/Element"*
  • No output from pgrep means Element is not running. A listed process means it is still open; quit it before touching its data.
  • ls -d printing Application Support/Element means the profile folder is still there, which is what a Mole uninstall with the default selection leaves. More names such as Element-Work are extra profiles. "no matches found" means no Element profile folder is left.

If you installed it with Homebrew

Mole skips --zap when the zap list reaches data you left unchecked, a path another installed app uses, or anything Mole cannot check, and it still cleans the leftovers you selected.

The element cask's zap list includes ~/Library/Application Support/Element, which holds your session and local encryption keys, and the older ~/Library/Application Support/Riot folder, along with caches under im.riot.app, ~/Library/HTTPStorages/im.riot.app, ~/Library/Logs/Riot, preferences and saved state. Running brew uninstall --cask --zap element yourself moves all of them to the Trash, whatever you ticked in Mole. To remove only the app:

brew uninstall --cask element

Homebrew's element cask

What Mole lists

For Element downloaded from element.io:

  • ~/Library/Application Support/Element is listed but not selected, because it holds your session and keys.
  • The rebuildable caches inside it (Cache, Code Cache, GPUCache, DawnGraphiteCache, DawnWebGPUCache, blob_storage) are listed as their own rows and selected by default.
  • The im.riot.app preferences file, its recent-documents list and its temporary caches are selected by default.
  • Extra Element-<profile> folders did not exist in the test, so it does not show how Mole treats them; check them yourself.

What this test covered

On September 26, 2026, Element 1.12.29 was downloaded from Element's package server, installed, launched once without signing in, and uninstalled with a development build of Mole with every listed row ticked. While it ran, Mole's Status page showed Element as one row of six processes, about 366 MB. The app and all 11 listed rows went to the Trash, including the 2.1 MB profile folder, and a rescan found none of them left. No login item or background task appeared. An earlier test on September 20, 2026 with version 1.12.28 from the same source gave the same result. No account was signed in, so the recovery key, sign-out and account steps above come from Element's documentation, not from this test.