How to uninstall JetBrains Toolbox on Mac

JetBrains Toolbox is a manager, and the IDEs it installed are separate apps. On current Toolbox versions they live in ~/Applications (Toolbox FAQ), and removing Toolbox does not remove them; it only stops Toolbox from managing and updating them. Decide first whether you want to keep those IDEs. Toolbox's own files sit inside the JetBrains folders under ~/Library, which every JetBrains IDE on the Mac shares, so remove only the Toolbox subfolders and never the shared parents. These steps cover the official download from jetbrains.com and the Homebrew cask jetbrains-toolbox.

Uninstall IDEs through Toolbox first, if you want them gone

If you no longer want an IDE that Toolbox installed, remove it while Toolbox is still there: open Toolbox, click the settings icon for that IDE and choose Uninstall (PyCharm uninstall docs describe the same flow for every JetBrains IDE). Your projects are ordinary folders and are not touched. If you want to keep an IDE, leave it installed; it keeps working without Toolbox.

Quit Toolbox and remove the app

Toolbox runs in the menu bar and starts at login through a launch agent labelled com.jetbrains.toolbox. Quit it from its menu bar icon, check Activity Monitor for any JetBrains Toolbox process, then move JetBrains Toolbox from Applications to the Trash. JetBrains says the Mac app is removed the same way as any other app (Toolbox installation docs). If a JetBrains Toolbox entry is still shown under System Settings › General › Login Items & Extensions afterward, turn it off there.

Where Toolbox keeps its data

Location What it holds What to do
~/Library/Application Support/JetBrains/Toolbox Toolbox settings and state Check its size first; remove once Toolbox is gone
~/Library/Caches/JetBrains/Toolbox Cache Safe to remove
~/Library/Logs/JetBrains/Toolbox Toolbox logs (named in the Toolbox FAQ) Safe to remove
~/Library/Preferences/com.jetbrains.toolbox.renderer.plist App preferences Safe to remove
~/Library/Saved Application State/com.jetbrains.toolbox.savedState Saved window state Safe to remove
~/Library/Application Support/JetBrains, ~/Library/Caches/JetBrains, ~/Library/Logs/JetBrains Shared parents that also hold every JetBrains IDE's settings, caches and logs Never remove these folders themselves
~/Applications The IDEs Toolbox installed Keep, or remove each IDE through Toolbox as above

The ~/Library paths come from the Homebrew cask's zap list. For what each IDE keeps under the shared folders, see JetBrains Caches on Mac (IntelliJ, WebStorm, PyCharm).

Check the result

Run these read-only commands in Terminal:

pgrep -il toolbox
launchctl list | grep -i com.jetbrains.toolbox
du -sh ~/Library/Application\ Support/JetBrains/Toolbox
ls ~/Library/Application\ Support/JetBrains
  • No output from pgrep means Toolbox is not running.
  • No output from launchctl list means the login agent is no longer loaded; a com.jetbrains.toolbox line means it still is, so turn it off in Login Items & Extensions or restart after removing the app.
  • du -sh prints how much Toolbox's own folder holds, or "No such file or directory" once it is gone. If it is far larger than a settings folder, look inside before removing it.
  • The last line lists what else lives in the shared folder. Names like PyCharm2026.2 belong to installed IDEs and must stay.

If you installed it with Homebrew

The jetbrains-toolbox cask quits Toolbox and unloads its com.jetbrains.toolbox launch agent on uninstall. Its zap list trashes the three Toolbox subfolders (Application Support, Caches, Logs), the renderer preferences file and the saved window state, and then removes the shared JetBrains parents only if they are already empty, so IDE data beside them is left alone. brew uninstall --cask --zap jetbrains-toolbox does this whatever you selected in Mole. It does not remove IDEs in ~/Applications. To keep Toolbox's settings, remove only the app:

brew uninstall --cask jetbrains-toolbox

Mole adds --zap only when everything in the zap list sits in your own ~/Library, is a row you left selected, and is not claimed by another installed app. The Toolbox folders under the shared JetBrains parents are not selected, so Mole removes Toolbox without --zap and moves only the rows you selected.

What Mole lists

When you remove it with Mole:

  • Mole shows a data-heavy notice for JetBrains apps, asking you to review their data before removing them.
  • The launch agent named after com.jetbrains.toolbox, the renderer preferences file and the saved window state are selected by default.
  • The Toolbox folders under Application Support, Caches and Logs come from the Homebrew zap list and are listed but not selected.
  • The shared JetBrains parent folders and ~/Library/Caches/com.jetbrains.toolbox are never offered for removal.
  • IDEs in ~/Applications are separate apps with their own rows in Mole's Software list; removing Toolbox does not remove them, and Mole never treats an IDE's settings as Toolbox data.

What this test covered

JetBrains Toolbox was installed from the Homebrew cask jetbrains-toolbox and uninstalled on September 19, 2026, with a Mole Preview build that still ran Homebrew's zap step and skipped the review list. Homebrew's removal took the com.jetbrains.toolbox launch agent with it, and the shared JetBrains parent folders stayed. No IDE installation through Toolbox is recorded, so keeping or removing Toolbox-managed IDEs was not exercised, and the official download was not part of it.