How to uninstall Shotcut on Mac

Shotcut keeps its settings, layouts and presets in its own Shotcut folder inside a Meltytech vendor folder, not in a folder named after its bundle ID. Back up ~/Library/Application Support/Meltytech/Shotcut first if you want to keep your layout, favorites and export presets. These steps cover the official DMG from the Shotcut GitHub releases page; the Homebrew cask shotcut is a separate path with its own risk, described below.

Quit Shotcut and remove the app

  1. Save your open projects, then choose Shotcut › Quit Shotcut.
  2. Search for Shotcut in Activity Monitor and confirm the process has exited.
  3. Find Shotcut in Finder's Applications folder and move it to the Trash. If macOS says it is in use, return to the previous step.
  4. Open System Settings › General › Login Items & Extensions and turn off any Shotcut entry that is still listed.

Where Shotcut keeps local data

Location What it holds What to do
~/Library/Application Support/Meltytech/Shotcut Shotcut's own settings, layouts, favorites and export presets Listed but not selected by default; back it up before you tick it
~/Library/Caches/Meltytech/Shotcut App cache Listed but not selected by default; safe to tick
~/Library/Preferences/com.meltytech.Shotcut.plist App preferences Selected by default
~/Library/Application Support/Meltytech (the parent folder) Shared vendor folder, empty once Shotcut's own subfolder is gone Mole does not remove shared vendor parent folders; delete it yourself only after confirming it is empty and you have no other Meltytech product

Your project files (.mlt) and any exported video stay wherever you saved them and are never part of this list.

Check the result

pgrep -il shotcut
ls -d ~/Library/Application\ Support/Meltytech
ls -d ~/Library/Application\ Support/Meltytech/Shotcut
ls -d ~/Library/Preferences/com.meltytech.Shotcut.plist
  • No output from pgrep means Shotcut is no longer running. A listed process means it is still open; quit it before touching its data.
  • The first ls -d printing Meltytech after Shotcut is removed usually means only the empty parent is left; Mole and an ordinary uninstall both leave it there on purpose.
  • The second ls -d printing Meltytech/Shotcut means your settings folder is still there, expected if you kept that row unticked. "No such file or directory" means it is gone.
  • The preferences line printing the path means the plist survived; "No such file or directory" means it was removed.

If you installed it with Homebrew

Mole checks the zap list first: unchecked or shared data, or anything it cannot fully verify, keeps --zap out, and it still removes whatever you selected.

The shotcut cask's zap list trashes ~/Library/Application Support/Meltytech and ~/Library/Caches/Meltytech, both at the shared vendor level rather than the Shotcut subfolder alone, plus the preferences plist. Running brew uninstall --cask --zap shotcut yourself removes the whole Meltytech folder even if another Meltytech product happened to use it, without looking at Mole's checkboxes. Homebrew Shotcut cask

Since the zap list reaches the unticked Meltytech/Shotcut rows, Mole leaves out --zap for a Homebrew install of Shotcut unless you tick both.

To remove only the app and keep your settings:

brew uninstall --cask shotcut

What Mole lists

  • ~/Library/Application Support/Meltytech/Shotcut and ~/Library/Caches/Meltytech/Shotcut are listed but not selected, since Mole matches them by the vendor and product names rather than Shotcut's own bundle ID.
  • ~/Library/Preferences/com.meltytech.Shotcut.plist is selected by default.
  • The empty Meltytech parent folder is never listed or removed; Mole treats shared vendor parents as out of scope.

What this test covered

On September 21, 2026, Shotcut 26.8.1 was copied from the official DMG into Applications, opened once, then removed with Mole 1.15.0 Preview (build 282) and Full Disk Access granted, with every listed row ticked. The app and both Meltytech/Shotcut folders went to the Trash with no failures. The empty Meltytech parent folder stayed behind, matching Mole's design of leaving shared vendor folders alone. No .mlt project files were involved, and the Homebrew cask was not tested.