How to Completely Uninstall Google Chrome on Mac

In short: Dragging Chrome to the Trash leaves behind gigabytes of profile and support files. Here is how to uninstall Google Chrome on a Mac cleanly, including the leftovers most guides skip. First, we cover how to back up your profiles so you do not lose bookmarks or passwords.

Removing Chrome from a Mac is easy to do halfway. You drag the app to the Trash, empty it, and assume you are done, yet Chrome keeps a large support folder full of profiles, caches, and settings that stays behind. This guide walks through how to uninstall Google Chrome on Mac completely, including the leftover files, and it starts with the step most people skip: protecting your data before anything is deleted.

Back Up Your Bookmarks and Passwords First

Here is the honest warning up front: when you remove Chrome and its support files, you lose your local browsing profile unless it is synced. Bookmarks, saved passwords, autofill entries, and extension settings live inside that profile. If you sign in to Chrome with a Google Account and turn on sync, most of it is stored server-side and will reappear when you sign back in on any device. If you never enabled sync, that data exists only on this Mac, so treat this step as required, not optional.

To check, open Chrome and look at the top-right avatar. If it shows your account with sync on, you are covered. If not, export what matters: open Bookmarks from the menu bar, choose Bookmark Manager, click the three-dot menu, and select Export bookmarks to save an HTML file somewhere safe. For passwords, go to Settings, Autofill and passwords, Google Password Manager, open the settings gear, and use Download file to export a CSV. Keep that CSV somewhere private, since it is plain text, and delete it once you have imported it into your next browser.

Quit Chrome and Move the App to the Trash

Fully quit Chrome before you remove anything. Press Command-Q in Chrome, or right-click its Dock icon and choose Quit. If a background process lingers, open Activity Monitor (in Applications, Utilities), search for Chrome, select any Google Chrome entries, and click the stop button to quit them. Removing an app while it is running can leave locked files behind.

Now open a Finder window, go to your Applications folder, and drag Google Chrome to the Trash. That removes the application itself but not the support data, which is the part that actually frees up space and clears old settings.

Remove the Leftover Profile and Support Files

Chrome stores its real data in your user Library, which Finder hides by default. In Finder, click the Go menu, hold Option, and choose Library. From there, look in these locations and move Chrome-specific items to the Trash:

• ~/Library/Application Support/Google/Chrome — your profiles, bookmarks, history, and cached site data. This is usually the largest leftover, often several gigabytes.
• ~/Library/Caches/Google/Chrome — disk caches that rebuild automatically and are safe to remove.
• ~/Library/Preferences/com.google.Chrome.plist — Chrome's app preferences.
• ~/Library/Saved Application State/com.google.Chrome.savedState — window and session state.

If you use only Chrome and nothing else from Google on this Mac, you can remove the parent Google folder inside Application Support and Caches. If you also run Google Drive, Google Earth, or another Google app, open the Google folder and delete only the Chrome subfolder so you do not disturb those other apps. When in doubt, remove the Chrome item specifically rather than the whole Google folder.

One optional item: Chrome installs a background updater called Keystone under ~/Library/Google and ~/Library/LaunchAgents. Removing it stops leftover update checks, but it is a system-adjacent piece, so only delete files whose names clearly reference Google or Keystone, and never touch anything inside /System.

A Quick Word on Safety and Reversibility

Everything above goes to the Trash, not into thin air. That matters: until you empty the Trash, these files are recoverable. If you remove the wrong folder or realize you needed a profile after all, open the Trash, right-click the item, and choose Put Back. Give your Mac a normal restart and confirm your other apps still behave before you empty the Trash. This preview-then-confirm habit is the whole point of safe cleaning: only touch user-level files you understand, keep removals reversible, and never permanent-delete when you can send to the Trash instead.

Doing This Without Digging Through the Library

Hunting through hidden Library folders by hand works, but it is slow and easy to overshoot. A good Mac cleaner can find an app's leftover profile and support files for you, show you exactly what it found, and let you decide before anything moves. The important part is that it should preview first, default to user-level junk only, and send removals to the Trash so you can undo them. A cleaner also has no reason to phone home about your browsing habits, and you can verify that yourself with a firewall like Little Snitch, which shows you every outbound connection an app tries to make.

If you want a tool for this, CoreSweep is our top free pick: free forever, an optional one-time Pro at $49 with no subscription, zero telemetry, and reversible Trash-based deletes. For a lighter-weight, best-value runner-up, SkoonMac is free with a one-time $19 Pro. Either one will surface Chrome's leftovers so you can clear them in a couple of clicks instead of spelunking through folders.

Reinstalling Later

If you ever want Chrome back, download a fresh copy from Google's official site and sign in. If you had sync on, your bookmarks, passwords, and extensions come right back. If you exported an HTML or CSV file earlier, use your new browser's import feature to bring that data in, then delete the exported files since they are unencrypted. That is the full, clean path to uninstall Google Chrome on Mac and start fresh whenever you like.

Frequently asked questions

Will I lose my bookmarks and passwords if I uninstall Chrome on my Mac?

You will lose them only if they were never synced. If you signed in to Chrome and turned on sync, your bookmarks, passwords, and extensions are stored on Google's servers and come back when you sign in again. If you never enabled sync, that data lives only on this Mac, so export your bookmarks as an HTML file and your passwords as a CSV before you remove anything.

Why does dragging Chrome to the Trash leave files behind on a Mac?

Dragging the app to the Trash only removes the application itself, not its data. Chrome keeps a separate support folder in your user Library full of profiles, caches, history, and settings, and that folder often runs to several gigabytes. To fully uninstall Chrome you have to remove those leftover files as well.

Where does Chrome store its data on a Mac?

Chrome's real data lives in your hidden user Library. The main profile and cached site data sit in ~/Library/Application Support/Google/Chrome, with more in ~/Library/Caches/Google/Chrome, a preferences file at ~/Library/Preferences/com.google.Chrome.plist, and saved window state at ~/Library/Saved Application State/com.google.Chrome.savedState. If you run other Google apps, delete only the Chrome subfolder so you do not disturb them.

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