How to uninstall Otter on Mac

Preserve wanted Otter conversations, audio and summaries before removing the Mac desktop app. Confirm that wanted conversations are available in your signed-in web account and keep independent copies of anything you need offline, outside sync and removal folders. Local app removal does not verify cloud recovery, stop a calendar-connected meeting assistant or cancel a plan.

Quit completely and remove the app

Finish any recording and save wanted text before quitting. In the recorded Mac follow-up, Quit completely was required to stop Otter's background activity; ordinary quit left it behind. Use that action when available and check remaining processes before removal. Preserve wanted local state shown in your uninstall review instead of treating it all as cache.

Follow Apple's Finder removal instructions, moving the Otter app from Applications to the Trash after saving state. Leave cloud conversations, calendar integrations and other apps' data alone unless you deliberately want those separate changes.

Check the result

pgrep -ifl 'Otter|otterai'

No output means the pattern found no matching process arguments, not that remote meeting attendance or every differently named helper has stopped. A surviving entry needs its executable path inspected before you act; read errors leave the result unknown. The recorded removal left crash-reporting/server child processes temporarily pointing to the removed bundle, so an absent app does not alone prove all processes have exited.

What Mole lists

Inspect each actual local-state row before removing it. Reviewed app data starts unchecked with Remove data and settings with apps off; enabling it can preselect eligible unshared app data. Exact app-ID cache/preferences follow their own default rules. Keep wanted conversation state unchecked after making a copy, and do not remove a shared Apple recent-document database to clear one record.

What this test covered

On September 22, 2026, the official-download Otter 1.12.0 app was copied into Applications, launched and removed with its selected support data. A recent-document record and child processes remained immediately afterward. A later launch check required Quit completely and did not repeat the data-uninstall cycle. Conversation export/recovery, calendar disconnection, account changes and Homebrew were not tested.