How to uninstall Ulysses on Mac
Back up your writing before removing Ulysses. Ulysses stores work in iCloud Drive for syncing, but its own help pages say iCloud should be seen as a syncing mechanism rather than a reliable backup, and notes kept On My Mac live only on this Mac. Ulysses also keeps automatic backups of your whole library in a Group Container, which is the folder that needs a separate decision. This covers the Mac App Store version.
Quit and check your backups first
- In Ulysses, open the File menu and choose Browse Backups to see the automatic backups it keeps, and restore or export anything you still need. The backups cover Projects, iCloud notes and On My Mac notes, but not External Folders, which live outside Ulysses anyway.
- Quit Ulysses.
- In Finder's Applications folder, move Ulysses to the Trash. The bundle file is named
UlyssesMac.app.
Where Ulysses keeps its data
Press Shift + Command + G in Finder and open each location that exists.
| Location | What it holds | What to do |
|---|---|---|
~/Library/Group Containers/X5AZV975AG.com.soulmen.shared |
Ulysses' automatic backups, in Ulysses/Backups inside this folder |
Copy the backups out first; remove only if you no longer need them |
~/Library/Containers/com.ulyssesapp.mac |
The app's sandboxed data and settings | Remove with the app once your writing is safe |
~/Library/Application Scripts/com.ulyssesapp.mac |
Scripts folder for the app | Remove with the app |
~/Library/Containers/com.ulyssesapp.mac.quicklookextension and com.ulyssesapp.mac.shareextension |
Containers for the Quick Look and Share extensions | Remove with the app |
~/Library/Application Scripts/com.ulyssesapp.mac.quicklookextension and com.ulyssesapp.mac.shareextension |
Scripts folders for the two extensions | Remove with the app |
~/Library/Application Scripts/X5AZV975AG.com.soulmen.shared |
Scripts folder for the backup group above | Treat it together with that group |
~/Library/Caches/CloudKit/com.ulyssesapp.mac |
Apple's iCloud sync cache for Ulysses | Safe to remove |
| iCloud Drive | Your synced Ulysses library | Not touched by removing the app, and not something to delete from Finder |
Check the result
Run these read-only commands in Terminal:
pgrep -il ulysses
mdfind "kMDItemCFBundleIdentifier == 'com.ulyssesapp.mac'"
ls -d ~/Library/Containers/com.ulyssesapp.mac ~/Library/Group\ Containers/X5AZV975AG.com.soulmen.shared
No output from pgrep means Ulysses is not running. No output from mdfind means Spotlight finds no remaining copy of the app; a path in the output is a copy still on disk. For each ls path, "No such file or directory" means that folder is gone, and the path printed back means it is still there, which is expected for the backup group if you kept it.
If you have an active subscription
Ulysses is billed as an App Store subscription. Removing the app does not cancel it; manage or cancel it from the Subscriptions section of your Apple Account.
What Mole lists
For the App Store version, Mole selects by default Ulysses' own container, its Application Scripts folder, the CloudKit cache and a temporary cache macOS keeps for it under /private/var/folders. The Quick Look and Share extension containers and scripts folders are listed for review and are not selected by default. The backup group X5AZV975AG.com.soulmen.shared and its Application Scripts folder are also review rows that are not selected by default; even when you tick them, Mole removes them only after confirming that no other installed app claims the group, and when it cannot confirm that, it keeps them and the result reads "Kept: couldn't confirm no other app uses this group". Mole never lists or removes iCloud Drive content.
What this test covered
On September 26, 2026, at the maintainer's request, Ulysses 41.1 was reinstalled from the Mac App Store and uninstalled again with a development build of Mole. Status showed one Ulysses row covering two processes at about 98 MB. Every listed row was selected. The 135 MB app, its container, Application Scripts folder, CloudKit cache and temporary cache, and both extensions' containers and scripts folders went to the Trash. The backup group and its scripts folder stayed: during the run, a Parallels Windows virtual machine rewrote an app shortcut in ~/Applications (Parallels), Mole's App Group check saw the installed-app list change and kept the group, and the result then said "Skipped: protected path". A system-managed Biome index for Ulysses' App Intents also remained; macOS manages it. No login item appeared before or after the removal. Signing in and iCloud sync were not tested.