How to uninstall Moonlight on Mac
Moonlight streams a paired PC's screen and does not store your documents locally, but it does keep your paired-host list and stream settings in a preferences file, worth copying if you are moving to a new Mac. This covers the official download from moonlight-stream.org and the Homebrew cask moonlight.
Quit Moonlight and remove the app
- Quit any active streaming session, then quit Moonlight from its application menu or Cmd+Q. No menu bar helper or login item was found registered for Moonlight in testing.
- Find Moonlight in Finder's Applications folder and move it to Trash.
Where the data lives
| Location | What it holds | What to do |
|---|---|---|
| ~/Library/Preferences/com.moonlight-stream.Moonlight.plist | Your paired-host list and stream settings | Selected by default. Copy it first if you want to keep your pairings. |
| ~/Library/Saved Application State/com.moonlight-stream.Moonlight.savedState | Saved window state | Selected by default. |
| ~/Library/Caches/Moonlight Game Streaming Project | A cache folder Moonlight's Qt framework creates | Safe to remove. Mole lists it only from Homebrew's zap list, unselected; otherwise delete it in Finder. |
If you installed it with Homebrew
Mole skips --zap when its list reaches unchecked or shared data, or cannot be fully checked, and still cleans the leftovers you selected.
The moonlight cask's zap list includes ~/Library/Caches/Moonlight Game Streaming Project, ~/Library/Preferences/com.moonlight-stream.Moonlight.plist, and ~/Library/Saved Application State/com.moonlight-stream.Moonlight.savedState. The Qt cache folder appears in Mole's list only as an unselected row taken from this zap list, so unless you tick it, Mole leaves --zap out and removes the rows you selected through its own deletion step.
To remove only the app:
brew uninstall --cask moonlight
Running brew uninstall --cask --zap moonlight yourself moves all three paths to the Trash, whatever you ticked in Mole.
Check the result
pgrep -il moonlight
launchctl list | grep -i moonlight
ls -d ~/Library/Caches/Moonlight\ Game\ Streaming\ Project
- No output from
pgrepmeans no Moonlight process is running. - No output from
launchctl listmeans no Moonlight job is loaded in your session; none was recorded in testing. ls -dprinting the path means the Qt cache folder is still there, expected unless you ticked it in Mole, deleted it yourself or ran--zap; "No such file or directory" means it is gone.
What Mole lists
For a Moonlight app installed from the official download or the Homebrew cask:
~/Library/Preferences/com.moonlight-stream.Moonlight.plistand~/Library/Saved Application State/com.moonlight-stream.Moonlight.savedStateare selected by default.- Mole can also list
~/Library/Caches/Moonlight Game Streaming Project, taken from Homebrew's zap list for this app, but does not select it. Mole does not look for this folder by its own name, so without that list it is not listed.
What this test covered
On September 19, 2026, Moonlight 6.1.0 from moonlight-stream.org's official download was copied into Applications, opened, and uninstalled with Mole Preview build 277 with Full Disk Access granted, in a batch of ten apps. While it ran, Mole's Status page showed Moonlight as one row of 371 MB across 5 processes. The app went to the Trash; the Qt cache folder was not among Mole's own rows, and what happened to it in this run was not recorded. No host was paired and no stream was started, and the Homebrew cask was not tested.