Uninstall Visual Studio on Mac

Asya Karapetyan
Content marketer, who specializes in Mac how-to guides
July 26, 2023

Visual Studio for Mac is a software program that allows you to create mobile apps for iOS and Android platforms. But despite being a popular and useful tool, at some point, you may need to uninstall Visual Studio from your Mac. This article will explain two ways on how to uninstall Visual Studio from Mac entirely with all of its support files. uninstall visual studio

Contents:

Tip – The quickest way to uninstall Visual Studio from Mac

If you don’t have time to read the guide, use App Cleaner & Uninstaller to completely uninstall Visual Studio from your Mac. This tool will find all of the support files of Visual Studio (Code and Community for Mac) and help get rid of the app entirely without leaving temporary files on your disk.
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App Cleaner & Uninstaller

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How to Manually Uninstall Visual Studio from Mac

No matter, you have to uninstall Visual Studio Code or Visual Studio Community for Mac, the steps required to completely uninstall the apps are almost the same. Before you dive into the guide, please note that it’s important to remove Visual Studio Community with all of its component files in order to get rid of the app entirely; we also explain how to do this.

Important notes about uninstalling Visual Studio from Mac

  • When installing Visual Studio Community, its installer requires you to install additional necessary components. Users install Visual Studio for different reasons, so you might have installed various additional apps on your computer along with the Visual Studio application without realizing it. For example, if you installed the components of Xamarin.Forms or ASP.NET Core, you will have to remove them as well.
  • It is important to understand that all programs consist of numerous files: an executable file, logs, caches, libraries, service files, and so on. If you wish to completely get rid of an application, you should remove all its service files from your Mac. This step will help prevent unwelcome technical issues with other programs on your computer in the future.
  • If you have any questions regarding this article or how our applications work, feel free to reach out to Nektony’s support team.

Steps on how to manually uninstall Visual Studio from Mac:

  1. Quit Visual Studio.
  2. Open Finder and go to the Applications folder.
  3. Select Visual Studio and remove it. removing Visual Studion from the Applications folder
  4. Find Visual Studio’s service files. By default, applications’ service files are stored in the Library folder. To gain access to this folder, go to the Finder’s menu bar, click Go → Go to Folder.
  5. In the window that appears type ~/Library and press Enter. Library
  6. Here in the Library folder remove all files and folders related to Visual Studio. The files differ depending on which application you are uninstalling (Visual Studio Code or Visual Studio Community). Check the following directories for Visual Studio service files:

    • ~/Library/Caches
    • ~/Library/Application Support
    • ~/Library/Preferences
    • ~/Library/Logs
    • ~/Library/Saved Application State
    Note:
    For the Visual Studio Code application you must search for files and folders having “code,” “VScode,” and “microsoft.VScode” words in their names. Files and folders associated with Visual Studio Community contain the “Visual Studio” phrase in their names.

  7. Note: If you need to uninstall Visual Studio Code, then skip step 7.
  8. Repeat the steps listed above to remove the rest of the Visual Studio components related to Xamarin.Forms or ASP.NET Core.
  9. Complete the deletion of Visual Studio by emptying the Trash bin.

To ensure that you have deleted all useless files from your Mac, we recommend that you use the free Nektony program, Funter. Funter scans your disk and finds hidden files by name. Just launch Funter, type the name in the search box, and hit Enter. In the window that appears, you will see a list of items that you can reveal in Finder and delete them. Funter showing Visual Studio files As seen, manually searching for applications’ service files is not so simple. Also, there is no guarantee that you will remove absolutely all of the support files on your own. And finally, you have to be extremely careful to not remove important system files in the Library folder, as this might damage your system. That’s why we recommend using App Cleaner & Uninstaller to uninstall Visual Studio from your Mac. This uninstaller automatically finds all service files of applications and safely removes them.


Uninstall Visual Studio on a Mac Automatically

The easiest and quickest way to uninstall Mac Visual Studio is to use Nektony’s uninstallation tool, App Cleaner & Uninstaller. This tool enables you to remove useless apps and their remains with just a few clicks. App Cleaner & Uninstaller removes programs correctly and entirely.

Steps on how to delete Visual Studio from Mac using App Cleaner & Uninstaller:

  1. Download and launch App Cleaner & Uninstaller.
  2. In the Applications tab select Visual Studio.
  3. Click the Uninstall button.
  4. Confirm the removal.
  5. Empty the Trash bin to complete the uninstallation of Visual Studio from your Mac.
Uninstalling Visual Studio
Note: If you switch to Expert mode in App Cleaner & Uninstaller, you can see the list of all service files Visual Studio created and stored on your hard drive.
App Cleaner & Uninstaller showing Visual Studio service files If you have manually removed Visual Studio, you can check your Mac for its remaining files. For this, switch to the appropriate tab in App Cleaner & Uninstaller. App Cleaner & Uninstaller window showing Visual Studio remaining files

Conclusion

Daily, we install numerous applications on our computers. If you don’t use some apps, you should uninstall them to stop taking up valuable space on your disk. When you uninstall applications, it is important to do this correctly and entirely by removing all of their remaining files. You can find service files manually or use App Cleaner & Uninstaller, which will do this task quickly and safely.



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