How to uninstall GitKraken on Mac

Your repositories are ordinary Git folders in the places you cloned them, and removing GitKraken does not touch them. What the app keeps for itself is your profiles, preferences and integration state in ~/.gitkraken, which GitKraken's FAQ describes deleting as a way to reset data. Push or commit work you care about and keep ~/.gitkraken if you might reinstall. This guide covers GitKraken Desktop from GitKraken's own download and the Homebrew cask gitkraken.

Quit GitKraken and remove the app

  1. Commit, stash or push work in progress, then quit GitKraken from the GitKraken menu.
  2. Search Activity Monitor for GitKraken and check that its processes have exited. In the recorded test the app ran eleven processes, the main app plus its helpers.
  3. Move GitKraken from Finder's Applications folder to the Trash.

Removing the app does not cancel a GitKraken subscription or delete your GitKraken account. Handle those in your GitKraken account settings.

Where GitKraken keeps its data

Press Shift + Command + G in Finder and check each location. Skip paths that do not exist.

Location What it holds What to do
~/.gitkraken Profiles, preferences, integration state and the logs folder Keep it for a reinstall; remove it only when you want GitKraken to start fresh
~/.gk Workspace lists used by GitKraken's gk command-line tool, seen in this test Keep it if you use gk or local Workspaces
~/Library/Application Support/GitKrakenCLI The copy of gk that GitKraken bundles, seen in this test Remove it with the app unless you still run that copy
~/Library/Application Support/GitKraken The app's local storage and Electron caches Remove after quitting once you no longer need local state
~/Library/Caches/com.axosoft.gitkraken and ~/Library/Caches/com.axosoft.gitkraken.ShipIt Caches and the updater's download area Safe to remove after quitting
~/Library/Preferences/com.axosoft.gitkraken.plist App preferences Remove only for a clean start
~/.gnupg Your GPG keys, shared with Git and every other signing tool; GitKraken may create it on first run Never remove it as part of this uninstall

Your cloned repositories and any global Git configuration belong to Git, not to GitKraken. Removing the app does not require changing them.

Check the result

Run these read-only commands after the app is in the Trash:

pgrep -il gitkraken
ls -d ~/.gitkraken ~/.gk "$HOME/Library/Application Support/GitKraken"
command -v gk
  • No output from pgrep means no GitKraken process is running. A listed process means the app or a helper is still open; quit it before touching its data.
  • ls -d prints each folder that still exists and reports "No such file or directory" for the rest. A surviving ~/.gitkraken is expected if you kept it for a reinstall.
  • command -v gk printing a path means a gk command still resolves in this shell. Check whether it points into a folder you removed or to a separately installed copy before deciding anything. No output only means this shell's PATH cannot find it.

If you installed it with Homebrew

The gitkraken cask's zap list includes ~/.gitkraken, ~/Library/Application Support/GitKraken, the com.axosoft.gitkraken caches, cookies, HTTP storage, both preferences files and the saved window state. brew uninstall --cask --zap gitkraken moves all of them to the Trash, so your profiles go with it. The zap list does not name ~/.gk, ~/Library/Application Support/GitKrakenCLI or ~/.gnupg.

To keep your profiles, remove only the app:

brew uninstall --cask gitkraken

Mole adds --zap only when every path on the zap list sits inside ~/Library, none of them touches a row you left unchecked, and no other installed app claims them. ~/.gitkraken is outside ~/Library, so Mole never adds --zap for this cask: it runs the plain command above and removes only the leftovers you selected. A brew command you type yourself never consults Mole's checkboxes.

What Mole lists

For GitKraken from GitKraken's download:

  • ~/.gitkraken, ~/.gk and ~/Library/Application Support/GitKrakenCLI are listed but not selected.
  • ~/Library/Application Support/GitKraken is listed but not selected. The Chromium cache folders inside it, such as Cache, Code Cache and GPUCache, are separate rows selected by default.
  • Caches, preferences, cookies, HTTP storage and saved window state filed under com.axosoft.gitkraken, and the com.axosoft.gitkraken.ShipIt updater cache, are selected by default.
  • ~/.gnupg and your repositories are not listed.

What this test covered

On September 19, 2026, GitKraken 12.5.0 was copied from GitKraken's own zip into Applications, opened, and uninstalled with a Preview build of Mole 1.15. There was no Homebrew receipt. The ~/Library/Application Support/GitKraken folder was listed, left unselected and stayed on disk. On September 26, 2026, it was installed again from the same official download, opened once, and removed with a development build of Mole with every row ticked. Mole's Status view showed it as one row of 11 processes, about 808 MB. The ~/.gitkraken, ~/.gk and GitKrakenCLI rows were listed unselected; with them ticked, all 16 items went to the Trash and nothing from the list was left. GnuPG's keyboxd, which GitKraken had started, kept running afterwards. No account sign-in, repository work or Homebrew install was tested.