How to uninstall the WeRead Pake app on Mac
This guide is about WeRead built with the open source Pake tool, which wraps the WeRead (微信读书) website in its own window. It is not Tencent's official WeRead app: its bundle id is com.pake.a13a7d2, its executable is pake-weread, and it is signed with a different team. Your books, highlights and reading progress live in your WeRead account, so removing it only loses the local login session. If you use Tencent's own WeRead app as well, its data is separate and stays.
Quit and remove the app
- Quit WeRead from its menu.
- Open Finder's Applications folder, find WeRead, and move it to the Trash.
Where this WeRead keeps its data
In Finder, press Shift + Command + G and open each location that exists.
| Location | What it holds | What to do |
|---|---|---|
~/Library/Application Support/com.pake.a13a7d2 |
App state | Selected by default in Mole |
~/Library/Caches/com.pake.a13a7d2 |
Cache | Selected by default |
~/Library/WebKit/com.pake.a13a7d2 |
The embedded web view's data, including the WeRead login | Selected by default |
~/Library/HTTPStorages/com.pake.a13a7d2 |
Web cookies | Selected by default |
~/Library/Preferences/com.pake.a13a7d2.plist |
Preferences | Selected by default |
~/Library/Application Support/WeRead |
A folder named after the display name, empty in the test | Listed for review, not selected |
Other folders named com.pake.<something> belong to other apps built with Pake, and group.com.tencent.weread belongs to Tencent's official WeRead app. Neither is part of this app, so leave them unless you know you are removing those apps too.
Check the result
pgrep -il pake-weread
ls -d ~/Library/Application\ Support/com.pake.a13a7d2 ~/Library/WebKit/com.pake.a13a7d2
No output from pgrep means the app is not running; a listed process means it is still open. For ls -d, a printed path means that folder is still on disk; "No such file or directory" means it is gone.
What Mole lists
For this app, Mole selects the rows named exactly after com.pake.a13a7d2 (Application Support, Caches, WebKit, HTTPStorages and preferences) by default, and lists ~/Library/Application Support/WeRead for review without selecting it. Folders for other com.pake.* apps can also appear, because every Pake app shares that prefix; Mole lists those for review and never selects them, so leave them unticked unless they are this app's. Mole does not claim the official WeRead app's group.com.tencent.weread.
What this test covered
On September 20, 2026, the Pake-built WeRead was copied into Applications, opened, and removed with a Mole 1.15 Preview (build 280) with Full Disk Access. Only this app's own id and Application Support/WeRead were ticked, not the other com.pake.* rows. The exact-id rows, about 6.5 MB in total, went to the Trash, the empty Application Support/WeRead needed nothing, and a WebKit temporary folder under /private/var/folders failed to move with error 513. Other Pake apps' folders and the official WeRead group on the same Mac were left alone. Signing in to WeRead was not tested, and there is no Homebrew cask for this app.