How to uninstall Ente Auth on Mac
Ente Auth is Ente's open source app for two-factor codes, from ente.io/auth and its GitHub releases. Your codes live in your Ente account, end-to-end encrypted, or only on this Mac if you chose Use without backups. Removing the app or its codes does not turn off two-factor sign-in at any website, so before you remove anything, make an encrypted export in Settings › Data › Export and check that you can import it, or confirm that another authenticator works for every service. Ente's offline mode page says an offline-only vault exists only on the device and cannot be restored from Ente's servers. This guide covers the disk image from the project's GitHub release and the Homebrew cask ente-auth; the Mac App Store build was not tested.
Quit and remove the app
- Create the encrypted export, keep its password somewhere you can reach without this app, and import the file on another trusted installation to check that your entries are there. If you turned on automatic local backups, those files are in the folder you picked and stay there.
- Quit Ente Auth with Command + Q. In the test the app ran 3 processes.
- Open Finder, go to Applications and drag Ente Auth to the Trash.
Ente Auth registered no login item or launch agent in the test.
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 |
|---|---|---|
~/Library/Containers/io.ente.auth.mac |
The app's sandbox, the only user-data folder the test found. Ente says offline codes are stored on the device, and this is where a sandboxed app keeps its local data | Export first, then remove. Selected by default. Mole's test run could not move it, see the note below. |
~/Library/Application Scripts/io.ente.auth.mac |
Empty folder macOS creates for a sandboxed app | Remove. Selected by default. |
The folder getconf DARWIN_USER_CACHE_DIR prints, then io.ente.auth.mac |
Mole's temporary cache row, 291 KB | Remove. Selected by default. |
| Your export and local backup files | Wherever you saved them, outside the app | Keep. |
Moving the container needs Full Disk Access for Mole (System Settings › Privacy & Security › Full Disk Access); without it Mole's report asks for that permission and the container stays. To do it by hand, quit Ente Auth, open the path in Finder and move the folder to the Trash. macOS may refuse while it treats the sandbox data as protected; grant the app doing the removal Full Disk Access, or leave the folder in place.
Ente's offline mode page also says the vault is encrypted with a key kept in the system's secure storage. Mole does not list or remove Keychain items, and that key was not checked.
Account and subscription
Uninstalling Ente Auth does not delete your Ente account, and Ente Auth is free. An Ente account is shared with Ente Photos and Locker, so Settings › Account › Delete account deletes all of their data. Ente's FAQ asks you to contact support first if the account has a paid plan. Only delete the account if that is what you want, after your codes are exported.
Check the result
pgrep -il 'ente auth|ente-auth'
ls -d /Applications/Ente\ Auth.app "$HOME/Library/Containers/io.ente.auth.mac" "$HOME/Library/Application Scripts/io.ente.auth.mac"
- No output from
pgrepmeans Ente Auth is not running. A printed line names a process still alive; quit it, or restart the Mac once. - For
ls -d, "No such file or directory" means that path is gone. A printed path is still on disk; the container is the likeliest survivor if macOS refused to move it.
If you installed it with Homebrew
brew uninstall --cask ente-auth
The cask has no uninstall step beyond removing the app. Its zap list trashes ~/Library/Containers/io.ente.auth.mac and ~/Library/Application Scripts/io.ente.auth.mac, so brew uninstall --cask --zap ente-auth deletes the container with your local codes whether or not you exported them, and does not read Mole's checkboxes. Mole adds --zap only when its whole removal scope passes its zap gate: both paths are inside ~/Library and both are rows Mole listed and you left ticked. Otherwise Mole leaves --zap off and removes the rows you selected itself.
What Mole lists
Mole selects the app, the container, the Application Scripts folder and the temporary cache row. Before removing, Mole asks Ente Auth to quit. Mole does not know whether your codes exist anywhere else, so untick the container if you have not exported them. Status shows Ente Auth as one row, and Mole finds no update channel for the app.
What this test covered
On November 9, 2026, on a second Mac running macOS 26, the test took Ente Auth 4.4.26 (Universal) from the project's GitHub release disk image, whose checksum matched the Homebrew cask ente-auth, copied it to Applications without running brew install, opened it once and removed it with a source-built, re-signed Debug build of Mole with every review row ticked. Mole's notarized release build was not used. No account was signed in. Mole moved the app, the Application Scripts folder and the temporary cache to the Trash. The container stayed because the test build ran without Full Disk Access. Status showed one Ente Auth row with 3 processes, and Mole found no update channel; no update was run. Sign-in, offline mode with real codes, exports and backups, the Keychain key, Homebrew and Mole's notarized release build were not tested.