How to uninstall PowerPhotos on Mac

PowerPhotos works on your Photos libraries, but they are not its data. Your .photoslibrary files stay where they are when you remove PowerPhotos, and Mole does not list a Photos library as a leftover: it does not scan your Pictures folder and treats it as protected. What PowerPhotos keeps of its own is small: settings, logs, caches, and its list of the libraries it knows about. PowerPhotos' help says that removing a library from that list only removes the entry and does not delete any files from disk. This guide covers PowerPhotos from its official download and from the Homebrew cask powerphotos.

Before you remove it

  1. Let any copy, merge or duplicate search you started finish, then check the result in Photos.
  2. If you turned on Show PowerPhotos in menu bar (PowerPhotos settings), turn it off. The help calls the PowerPhotosMenu helper behind it the only background process PowerPhotos leaves running after the main app quits.
  3. Note where your libraries are, if you keep several. The list is a convenience; the libraries themselves do not depend on it.

Quit PowerPhotos and remove the app

  1. Quit PowerPhotos from the PowerPhotos menu. In the recorded test it ran as one app process plus one macOS service, which Mole's Status page folded into one PowerPhotos row.
  2. Search Activity Monitor for PowerPhotos and check that neither PowerPhotos nor PowerPhotosMenu is running.
  3. Move PowerPhotos from Finder's Applications folder to the Trash. That is the vendor's own uninstall step.
  4. If you used the menu bar item, open System Settings › General › Login Items & Extensions and remove any PowerPhotos entry that is still listed.

If you keep another copy of PowerPhotos.app anywhere on the Mac, remove that copy too, or Mole will keep the library list for it, as the test below shows.

Where PowerPhotos keeps its data

Location What it holds What to do
Your .photoslibrary files Your photos Keep them; they are not PowerPhotos data
~/Library/Group Containers/8NQ43ND65V.com.fatcatsoftware.PowerPhotosLibraryList The library list, library_list.plist Remove if you do not plan to reinstall; it holds no photos
~/Library/Application Scripts/8NQ43ND65V.com.fatcatsoftware.PowerPhotosLibraryList Empty script folder for that group Remove with the group
~/Library/Application Support/com.fatcatsoftware.PowerPhotos App support files Remove with the app
~/Library/Logs/PowerPhotos App logs Remove with the app
~/Library/Caches/com.fatcatsoftware.PowerPhotos and ~/Library/Caches/SentryCrash/PowerPhotos App and crash-report caches Remove with the app; leave the SentryCrash folder itself
~/Library/Preferences/com.fatcatsoftware.PowerPhotos.plist App preferences Remove with the app

Check the result

pgrep -il powerphotos
ls "$HOME/Library/Group Containers/8NQ43ND65V.com.fatcatsoftware.PowerPhotosLibraryList"
  • No output from pgrep means neither PowerPhotos nor its menu bar helper is running. A PowerPhotosMenu line means the menu bar helper is still open; quit it from its menu first.
  • ls listing library_list.plist means the library list is still there, which is expected if you left it for a reinstall. "No such file or directory" means it is gone. Either way your Photos libraries are untouched.

If you installed it with Homebrew

The powerphotos cask quits the app before removal. Its zap list is the library-list group container and its Application Scripts folder, ~/Library/Application Support/com.fatcatsoftware.PowerPhotos, ~/Library/Caches/com.fatcatsoftware.PowerPhotos, ~/Library/Caches/com.plausiblelabs.crashreporter.data/com.fatcatsoftware.PowerPhotos, ~/Library/HTTPStorages/com.fatcatsoftware.PowerPhotos, ~/Library/Logs/PowerPhotos, the preferences file and the saved window state. brew uninstall --cask --zap powerphotos moves them to the Trash. None of them is a Photos library. To remove only the app:

brew uninstall --cask powerphotos

Mole adds --zap only when every path on the zap list sits inside ~/Library, none of them touches a row you left unchecked, and no other installed app claims them. The library-list group is listed but not selected by default, so Mole leaves --zap out unless you tick it.

What Mole lists

For PowerPhotos from the official download:

  • The group container 8NQ43ND65V.com.fatcatsoftware.PowerPhotosLibraryList and its Application Scripts folder are listed but not selected.
  • ~/Library/Application Support/com.fatcatsoftware.PowerPhotos, ~/Library/Logs/PowerPhotos, ~/Library/Caches/SentryCrash/PowerPhotos, and the caches, preferences and temporary caches filed under com.fatcatsoftware.PowerPhotos are selected by default.
  • Before it trashes a group you ticked, Mole checks that no other installed app, including another copy of PowerPhotos, declares it. If one does, or if Mole cannot confirm that none does, it keeps the group and says so on the row.
  • Photos libraries are not listed.

What this test covered

On September 26, 2026, PowerPhotos 3.4.7 was installed from its official zip, opened once without adding a library, and uninstalled with a development build of Mole with every row ticked. Status showed one PowerPhotos row with two processes using about 70 MB. Seven items went to the Trash: the app, its Application Support folder, both caches including SentryCrash/PowerPhotos, the logs, the preferences file and a temporary cache. The library-list group container and its Application Scripts folder stayed, because a leftover test copy of PowerPhotos.app in a temporary folder still declared that group, and Mole kept it as designed. No login item or background job appeared. Earlier, on September 23, 2026, the same version was removed and the group container and its Application Scripts folder failed as protected paths, because the ownership check had an incomplete list of installed apps. Photos libraries, the menu bar helper and a Homebrew install were not tested.