How to uninstall Nvidia Cuda Drivers on Mac

Asya Karapetyan
Asya Karapetyan
Content marketer, who specializes in Mac how-to guides
January 30, 2024
7 minutes to read

If you want to uninstall Nvidia CUDA, you should note that removing drivers on a Mac slightly differs from the steps for simple applications. A complete and correct driver uninstallation is essential to prevent issues and crashes of other drivers on Mac. This article will explain how to entirely and safely remove Nvidia drivers from your Mac.

Removing Nvidia Cuda Drivers

Contents:

  1. How to uninstall Nvidia CUDA Driver from Mac manually.
  2. How to uninstall Nvidia CUDA Driver using App Cleaner & Uninstaller.

Before we start

Below you can learn how to uninstall Nvidia Driver from Mac manually. However, if you don’t have much time to read the guide, download and use App Cleaner & Uninstaller from Nektony. This uninstaller removes applications completely with all of their support files. It also can find the leftovers of previously removed applications.
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What is an Nvidia CUDA Driver, and why remove it?

Nvidia Cuda is a driver that brings support for all graphic cards on a computer. In short, it is a platform for a different software, allowing to target Nvidia hardware. The driver was introduced in 2006. However, since macOS 10.14 (Mojave), Apple does not support CUDA. Developers were experiencing slow performance after upgrading the macOS. Thus, you should uninstall the driver from your Mac. Keep reading to learn how to do this correctly.

Important notes and the methodology used to write this article

  • Before writing this guide, we searched for the Nvidia uninstallation guide on its official website and found nothing.
  • To altogether remove Nvidia from Mac, you need to find and remove its remaining files even after removing them from System Preferences.
  • Since we have been coding an uninstalling tool for macOS apps for many years, we know all about the service files applications create on your computer. That’s why we decided to prepare our guide on how to remove CUDA Driver correctly.
  • We used a free application Funter and App Cleaner & Uninstaller from Nektony to find Nvidia leftovers.

How to uninstall Nvidia CUDA from Mac manually

You have to follow two essential steps to remove the CUDA driver on Mac completely and safely. First, you need to remove the driver. Then you need to remove its remaining files from your computer. Follow these steps:

  1. Quit Nvidia CUDA driver.
  2. Close all the Nvidia processes working in the background. For this, open Activity Monitor, find these processes, and close them using the “X” button.
    CPU tab in Activity Monitor window
  3. Open System Settings.
  4. Scroll down the left panel to find the CUDA driver icon.
  5. Make a right-click on it and select Remove “CUDA” Preference Pane.
Selecting Remove CUDA Preferences Pane option in the System Settings window

Now you need to find all the leftovers (service files) of the Nvidia driver on your disk. These files are usually hidden and stored in the system Library folder. To find them, do the following:

  1. Open Finder and press the Shift+Command+G shortcut. This will open the Go to the Folder search field. Type ~/Library and press Enter.

  2. Check the following subfolders in Library for Nvidia temporary files:

    • ~/Library/Application Support/
    • ~/Library/Caches/
    • ~/Library/Preference Panes
    • ~/Library/LaunchAgents/
    • ~/Library/LaunchDaemons/
  3. Remove all files associated with Nvidia.
  4. Empty your Trash and reboot your system.
CUDA files in Finder

After the provided steps, Nvidia should be removed entirely from your machine. However, note that some service files may be scattered on the disk, so it’s not so easy to find absolutely all of them. You can use the free application Funter to check your disk for the driver’s remaining files or use App Cleaner & Uninstaller for this.
Funter is an application to find hidden system files. To find hidden leftover files using Funter, do the following:

  1. Launch Funter.
  2. Type CUDA in the Funter’s search field and press Enter.
  3. Funter will display a list of all files that contain the search word in their names.
  4. Select the service files of the CUDA driver, and click to remove them.

Find hidden CUDA files using Funter application
The manual uninstallation of Nvidia CUDA Driver seems to be complicated, doesn’t it? The good news is that there is another, much easier way to uninstall the driver. We invite you to learn how to easily uninstall Nvidia CUDA or any other driver from Mac with App Cleaner & Uninstaller.

How to uninstall Nvidia CUDA Driver using App Cleaner & Uninstaller

App Cleaner & Uninstaller is a tool that allows you to completely remove any application from your Mac and find the leftovers of already deleted applications.

  1. Launch App Cleaner & Uninstaller.
  2. Select CUDA from the list of scanned applications.
  3. Click the Remove button and confirm the removal.

Removing CUDA Preferences with App Cleaner & Uninstaller

If you have already removed Nvidia, you can check your Mac for its remaining files. For this, switch to the Remaining Files section. Here you will find the list of all unneeded files that applications left behind after their removal.

App Cleaner & Uninstaller is free to download. Use this driver uninstaller to delete Nvidia from your computer entirely.

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