How to uninstall i4Tools (爱思助手) on Mac

爱思助手 (i4Tools) is an iPhone management tool, and the one folder on your Mac that may hold something you want is ~/Library/Application Support/爱思助手. It carries the app's Chinese name on every Mac, even one set to English, where Finder shows the app as i4Tools. Version 9.11 also keeps a working folder in your Downloads, ~/Downloads/i4ToolsDownloads, with a small database, a cache and a settings file; downloaded firmware or apps may land there too. The tests connected no iPhone and made no backup, so they do not show where 爱思助手 saves backups or exported files; if you used it for any of those, find them and copy what you want before you remove anything. This guide covers the official installer package, which installs i4Tools.app and leaves a package receipt named cn.i4tools.mac.

See what the package installed

Before removing anything, these read-only commands show the receipt and the files it recorded:

pkgutil --pkgs | grep -i i4tools
pkgutil --files cn.i4tools.mac | head -20

The receipt id is all lowercase, while the app's own id is cn.i4Tools.mac. No output from the first command means no receipt is on this Mac, for example because the app was copied rather than installed.

Quit it completely

1. Quit 爱思助手 from its menu.
2. Open Activity Monitor and search for i4Tools. It runs as the main process plus several QtWebEngine helper processes (four in the first test, three in the second), which Mole's Status page folds into one row.

In the first test, 爱思助手 had restarted itself in the background and Mole did not show it as running, so confirm with pgrep in the checks below rather than trusting the app list.

Remove the app

1. Move i4Tools.app, normally in Applications, to the Trash, as described in Apple's Delete or uninstall apps on Mac. It was installed by a package, so macOS may ask for an administrator password.
2. Open ~/Library/Application Support/爱思助手 with Shift + Command + G, look through it, and move it to the Trash only once you have kept what you need.
3. Look through ~/Downloads/i4ToolsDownloads and move it to the Trash once you have kept any downloads you want.
4. Optionally, drop the package receipt. It holds no files, only the install record, so this changes nothing else:

sudo pkgutil --forget cn.i4tools.mac

Use the lowercase spelling; pkgutil --forget matches the id exactly.

Where 爱思助手 keeps its data

These locations come from the recorded test; 爱思助手 does not publish a list of them.

Check the result

pgrep -lf i4Tools.app
pkgutil --pkgs | grep -i i4tools
ls -d ~/Library/Application\ Support/爱思助手 ~/Library/Preferences/cn.i4Tools.mac.plist ~/Downloads/i4ToolsDownloads

• No output from pgrep means nothing from the app is running. A line means the main process or one of its helpers is still alive; quit it, or restart the Mac once.
• cn.i4tools.mac in the second command's output means the receipt is still there. That is harmless; forget it with the command above if you want the record gone.
• For ls -d, "No such file or directory" means that path is gone. A printed path is still on disk; if it is the data folder, that is your decision to make.

What Mole lists

For 爱思助手 from the official package:

• ~/Library/Preferences/cn.i4Tools.mac.plist and the app's temporary cache folder are selected by default.
• ~/Library/Application Support/爱思助手 is listed for review and starts checked. On an English Mac the name comes from the app's Chinese strings, and on a Chinese Mac it is the display name. Uncheck this exact row if you want the data to stay.
• ~/Downloads/i4ToolsDownloads is not listed; Mole does not remove folders from Downloads.
• After the app is gone, Mole forgets the cn.i4tools.mac receipt using the receipt's own lowercase spelling. It does this only when Mole's administrator helper is already set up and needs no password, and it never removes files through the receipt.
• The test showed no login items or launch agents for it, and Mole found no update channel it could check.

What this test covered

On September 25, 2026, 爱思助手 9.10.018 was installed from the official package and uninstalled with Mole 1.15 Preview build 290. While it ran, Status showed it as one row with five processes, about 2.0 GB. The app, 619.9 MB, its preferences and its temporary cache went to the Trash. Two i4Tools_*.diag reports under /Library/Logs/DiagnosticReports were skipped, because they matched a whitelist entry on the test Mac. Two things stayed: ~/Library/Application Support/爱思助手, which that build did not list on an English-first Mac, and the receipt, whose forget failed because of the difference in case. Both were fixed in Mole's code after the test. The app had restarted itself shortly before, Mole showed it as recently opened rather than running, and the removal went through with its processes exiting normally.

On October 31, 2026, 爱思助手 9.11.003 (Apple silicon) from the official disk image, whose package still writes the lowercase cn.i4tools.mac receipt, was opened and then uninstalled with a source-built Mole. Status showed it as one row with five processes while it ran, and Mole asked it to quit before removing it. The app, about 609 MB, its preferences, its temporary cache and ~/Library/Application Support/爱思助手 went to the Trash, the receipt was forgotten, and nothing with its name was left in ~/Library or the process list afterwards. ~/Downloads/i4ToolsDownloads stayed, because Mole does not list it. No startup item or update channel appeared. In neither test was an iPhone connected, a backup made or an account used.