How to uninstall Waves Central on Mac

Save audio sessions and presets before removing Waves Central. Removing this manager is different from uninstalling Waves plugins. If removing products too, do that while Central is still available: the official product-removal page first quits audio hosts, then selects products in Central's Install Products > Uninstall tab. Review the Summary and license target: license deactivation is enabled by default, with Don't Deactivate available when keeping activation. Complete-version removal uses Settings > Maintenance.

Remove Central after product decisions

Quit Central once those decisions are complete, then move Waves Central.app from Applications to the Trash. Keep audio projects, shared product data and licences needed elsewhere. For Homebrew, the current cask supports:

brew uninstall --cask waves-central

Ordinary removal removes Central. Zap also targets Waves Audio and Waves Central support, its recent-document list, exact preference and saved state. The Waves Audio target is broader than the manager; review its contents before using zap, which ignores Mole choices. Neither command substitutes for the vendor's product/license decisions.

ls -ld "/Applications/Waves Central.app"
ls -ld "$HOME/Library/Application Support/Waves Central"

Printed paths remain. Missing-path errors apply only to these locations; permission errors leave them unknown. They do not establish that plugins are gone or licenses deactivated.

What Mole lists

The selected app and exact preference are normally checked when present and unprotected. Display-name support needs review and is unchecked by default; keep shared Waves Audio data unless its whole scope is intended. Remove data and settings with apps is off by default, with shared stores still requiring individual review.

What this test covered

The official Central app and selected local data were removed with source-built Mole on October 3, 2026. It was first launched without signing in or installing products. The selected original paths were absent afterward. Plugin uninstall, license deactivation, audio-session recovery and Homebrew-managed removal were not tested.