How to uninstall Porting Kit on Mac
Back up game saves and wanted installed game wrappers before removing Porting Kit. Its official site provides the Mac app; the first-launch test did not install a game, Wine engine or Rosetta. This guide covers that app, not removal of every game environment you may have created later.
Quit and remove the app
Save game progress first, then quit running games and Porting Kit before moving Porting Kit.app to the Trash. Do not discard game wrappers or saved games solely to remove the manager.
Review manager data and game environments
~/Library/Application Support/portingkitis in the current cask’s zap list. The short first-launch test did not create it; inspect any existing contents and keep wanted state.- The cask also names
~/Library/Preferences/com.paulthetall.portingkit.plist,~/Library/Saved Application State/com.paulthetall.portingkit.savedStateand the app’s recent-document-list pattern. - Installed game wrappers, saves and separately installed Wine engines need their own inventory and backup. No game-data location was established by this empty first run.
After quitting Porting Kit and the games it started, open the three exact support, preference and saved-state paths above with Finder’s Shift + Command + G. Copy wanted manager state and any game data you find outside those folders first, then move only the chosen files or folders to the Trash. Keep game wrappers and engines you still use, and do not delete shared parent directories.
Check the result
pgrep -ifl "Porting Kit|portingkit"
ls -ld "/Applications/Porting Kit.app" "$HOME/Library/Application Support/portingkit" "$HOME/Library/Preferences/com.paulthetall.portingkit.plist"
No process output means this name was not found, not that every helper has gone. Check any match against the app’s actual executable path. A missing-path error from ls means only that location is absent; permission errors leave its state unknown. A surviving folder can be intentional data to keep.
If you installed it with Homebrew
The cask has no separate uninstall helper. Zap includes the portingkit support parent, preferences, saved state and the app-specific recent-document pattern. It is not a validated removal procedure for every installed game or engine.
To uninstall without zap, use:
brew uninstall --cask porting-kit
Mole checks Homebrew's full removal list and skips --zap when it reaches unchecked data, shared files or anything it cannot verify. It still removes the leftovers you selected. A direct brew uninstall --cask --zap porting-kit runs Homebrew’s full zap list without consulting Mole’s checkboxes.
What Mole lists
Mole selects the app and any attributable strong cache or preference rows found by the scan. When present, the display-name support parent is unchecked with “Remove data and settings with apps” off; enabling it can select this eligible reviewed row. Uncheck it if it contains manager or game data you want to keep. The recorded first run listed only the app; that does not promise an app-only list after installing games.
What this test covered
On September 25, 2026, Porting Kit 6.7.0 was copied from its official disk image and tested with a development build of Mole. No app data appeared during the 25-second first launch, so the app was the only uninstall item. No Rosetta installation, Wine engine download, game installation or save recovery was verified.