How to uninstall Rio on Mac

Rio is a hardware-accelerated terminal emulator built with Rust and WebGPU. Removing Rio does not touch your user shell (zsh, bash, or fish), shell configuration files (~/.zshrc, ~/.bashrc), command history (~/.zsh_history), or files created in terminal sessions. However, quitting a terminal emulator terminates running foreground processes and interactive sessions; save any open documents and close remote SSH connections before proceeding. If you created a custom configuration, it resides at ~/.config/rio/config.toml; copy that file first if you want to reuse your settings. This guide covers the official Mac app and Homebrew cask rio.

Quit and remove the app

  1. Press Command + Q inside Rio, or choose Rio › Quit Rio. Ensure any active terminal jobs have completed.
  2. Open Finder, navigate to Applications, and drag rio.app to the Trash. The application bundle name is lowercase.

Review local data

These paths are declared in the Homebrew cask or were created during the recorded test. In Finder, press Shift + Command + G to inspect each path. Skip any path that is not present on your Mac.

Location What it holds What to do
~/Library/Preferences/com.raphaelamorim.rio.plist Window preferences and state Preferences. Mole selects this file when it is present.
~/Library/Saved Application State/com.raphaelamorim.rio.savedState Saved window restoration state Saved window state from the cask. Mole selects this folder when it is present.
~/Library/Caches/rio Render pipeline and runtime cache Name-based cache from this installation. Listed for review, and not selected while Remove data and settings with apps is off.

Check the result

pgrep -il rio
ls -ld "/Applications/rio.app" "$HOME/Library/Preferences/com.raphaelamorim.rio.plist" "$HOME/Library/Saved Application State/com.raphaelamorim.rio.savedState" "$HOME/Library/Caches/rio"
  • No output from pgrep means no matching process was found.
  • A printed line from pgrep indicates an active process. Check Activity Monitor to ensure it is not another command containing rio.
  • An error from pgrep does not prove the app has quit.
  • A path printed by ls is still present on disk.
  • No such file or directory confirms that path has been completely removed.
  • Permission denied means your account lacks read access for that directory.

If you installed it with Homebrew

brew uninstall --cask rio

The cask quits com.raphaelamorim.rio during uninstall. Its zap list includes ~/Library/Preferences/com.raphaelamorim.rio.plist and ~/Library/Saved Application State/com.raphaelamorim.rio.savedState. It does not name ~/Library/Caches/rio. Running brew uninstall --cask --zap rio removes that zap list and does not read Mole's checkboxes. Mole checks the full removal list and skips --zap when it reaches unchecked data, shared files, or a path it cannot verify. Leftovers you selected still use Mole's own removal.

What Mole lists

Mole selects the app, ~/Library/Preferences/com.raphaelamorim.rio.plist, and ~/Library/Saved Application State/com.raphaelamorim.rio.savedState when those items are present. ~/Library/Caches/rio is listed and not selected while Remove data and settings with apps in General › Cleaning is off. Your shell configurations and dotfiles are outside this list.

These defaults assume “Remove data and settings with apps” is off. Opting in also selects eligible reviewed app data; shared stores and protected data retain individual review or stay locked.

What this test covered

On October 9, 2026, Rio 0.5.28 from the official Universal package was copied into Applications, used to run echo mole-leftover-test, and removed. The recorded removal included the app, the preferences file, and ~/Library/Caches/rio after that cache row was selected. The saved-state folder was not present. Status showed one Rio row while it was running. No new launch agent was found. Mole's update page was not opened. A Homebrew install was not tested.