How to uninstall Krita on Mac

Krita keeps your brush presets, workspaces and custom settings in one Application Support folder, separate from the .kra files you paint and save yourself. Back up that folder first if you might reinstall or switch machines. These steps cover the official signed DMG from krita.org; the Homebrew cask krita is a separate path with its own risk, described below.

Quit Krita and remove the app

  1. Save your open documents, then choose Krita › Quit Krita.
  2. Search for Krita in Activity Monitor and confirm the process has exited.
  3. Find Krita in Finder's Applications folder and move it to the Trash. If macOS says it is in use, return to the previous step.
  4. Open System Settings › General › Login Items & Extensions and turn off any Krita entry that is still listed.

Where Krita keeps local data

Location What it holds What to do
~/Library/Application Support/krita Brush presets, resource bundles, workspace layouts and custom settings Listed but not selected by default; back it up before you tick it
~/Library/Preferences/kritarc Krita's main preferences file, written under a plain name rather than a reverse-DNS one Listed but not selected by default
~/Library/Preferences/kritadisplayrc Display and canvas preferences Listed but not selected by default
Krita's log files (krita.log, krita-sysinfo.log) Diagnostic logs from recent runs Safe to remove with the app
~/Library/Containers/org.krita.krita-preview and ~/Library/Containers/org.krita.krita-thumbnailer Sandbox containers for Krita's Finder preview and thumbnail extensions Safe to remove with the app; macOS can refuse to move them, see below

Your own .kra files stay wherever you saved them and are never part of this list.

Check the result

pgrep -il krita
ls -d ~/Library/Application\ Support/krita
ls -d ~/Library/Preferences/kritarc ~/Library/Preferences/kritadisplayrc
ls ~/Library/Containers | grep -i krita
  • No output from pgrep means Krita is no longer running. A listed process means it is still open; quit it before touching its data.
  • ls -d printing the Application Support path means your presets and settings are still there, expected if you kept that row unticked. "No such file or directory" means it is gone.
  • The kritarc / kritadisplayrc line prints whichever of the two files still exist; both missing means both were removed.
  • The grep line lists any Krita container still under ~/Library/Containers. These belong to the preview and thumbnail extensions and hold no documents. macOS can refuse to move a sandbox container to the Trash, which is what happened in this test; if one is still listed, you can drag it to the Trash in Finder.

If you installed it with Homebrew

Mole checks the zap list first: unchecked or shared data, or anything it cannot fully verify, keeps --zap out, and it still removes whatever you selected.

The krita cask's zap list reaches ~/Library/Application Support/krita*, ~/Library/Caches/krita, ~/Library/Preferences/kritarc and kritadisplayrc, ~/Library/Saved Application State/org.krita.savedState, and the two extension containers and their Application Scripts under org.krita.*. Running brew uninstall --cask --zap krita yourself moves all of that to the Trash, your presets and settings included, without looking at Mole's checkboxes. Homebrew Krita cask

Since Application Support and the two preferences files are unticked by default, Mole leaves out --zap for a Homebrew install of Krita unless you tick them.

To remove only the app and keep your presets and settings:

brew uninstall --cask krita

What Mole lists

  • ~/Library/Application Support/krita is listed but not selected, since it is named after the app rather than its bundle ID.
  • ~/Library/Preferences/kritarc and kritadisplayrc are listed but not selected; they use a plain filename rather than Krita's reverse-DNS bundle ID.
  • Krita's two log files, krita.log and krita-sysinfo.log, are listed.
  • The preview and thumbnail extension containers, org.krita.krita-preview and org.krita.krita-thumbnailer, and their Application Scripts folders are selected, because both extension IDs continue Krita's own org.krita ID. The temporary cache under /var/folders named after org.krita is selected too.

What this test covered

On September 21, 2026, Krita 5.3.4 was copied from the official signed DMG into Applications, opened once, then removed with Mole 1.15.0 Preview (build 282) and Full Disk Access granted. Everything listed was ticked. The 1.01 GB app, the 109.8 MB Application Support folder, both log files, the Application Scripts folders and the temporary cache went to the Trash. The two extension containers were listed but macOS refused to move them (error 513), so they stayed on disk. ~/Library/Preferences/kritarc and kritadisplayrc also stayed, because that build did not list them; the rows that list them were added to Mole after this test, and no official build has uninstalled Krita since. No .kra documents were involved, and the Homebrew cask was not tested.