How to Uninstall Steam on Mac (and Get Your Game Storage Back)

To uninstall Steam on a Mac, quit Steam from the Steam menu, drag Steam from Applications to the Trash, then open ~/Library/Application Support/Steam and delete the whole folder, or everything except steamapps if you want to keep installed games. That is Valve's documented method. Empty the Trash, then check Storage settings for the space you got back.

Valve's page stops there, but a current install also leaves a background launch agent, two small helper files and, on some Macs, two audio drivers. This guide shows how to uninstall Steam on Mac completely, on any MacBook, iMac or Mac mini. It keeps your saves safe and ends with a check that nothing from Steam is still running.

The full removal, in six steps:

1. Quit Steam and drag it from Applications to the Trash.
2. Delete the Steam folder in ~/Library/Application Support, or everything in it except steamapps.
3. Remove Steam libraries on other drives, plus game shortcuts and game folders you no longer need.
4. Remove Steam's preference and web storage files.
5. Remove the steamclean launch agent, any login item and, if present, the streaming audio drivers.
6. Empty the Trash, restart, and check your free space.

Why dragging Steam to the Trash is not enough

Valve says it plainly on its Removing and Reinstalling Steam on a Mac page: dragging Steam to the Trash will not fully uninstall it. The reason is the way Steam is built.

The Steam app in your Applications folder is a small launcher, about 11 MB on the current install we checked. The first time it runs, it installs the real client into your user Library, at ~/Library/Application Support/Steam/Steam.AppBundle. On that same Mac, the client alone took about 1.4 GB before a single game was installed.

The Steam folder holds everything else Steam keeps on disk:

• steamapps holds your installed games in steamapps/common, along with Workshop items and downloads in progress.
• userdata holds the local copies of Steam Cloud files for every account that signed in on this Mac.
• logs, appcache, config and depotcache hold Steam's logs, caches and settings.

Outside that folder, Steam adds a launch agent to ~/Library/LaunchAgents and a couple of small files for its web helper, and trashing the app touches none of it. Security software goes much further, as the Trend Micro removal guide shows, but the idea is the same. The app icon is only part of the install.

Only want space back? Uninstall games inside Steam first

If Steam works and your disk is simply full, you may not need to remove Steam at all. Games are what take the space, and Steam removes them cleanly. A game you uninstall stays in your Library, so you can download it again later.

Uninstall one game from your Library

1. Open Steam and click Library.
2. Control-click (or right-click) the game, then choose Manage, then Uninstall.
3. Confirm. Steam's prompt explains that the game stays in your Games Library, but you will need to download it again to play.

Uninstall several games from Storage settings

Choose Steam > Settings from the menu bar and open the Storage page, which shows each drive that holds a Steam library. Each drive has a list of its games, with their size and when you last played them. Select the games you want gone and click Uninstall.

The same page has a Move button, which shifts games to another library instead of deleting them. Valve notes that external hard drives are not recommended for Steam games, so weigh that before you move a large library to one.

Before you uninstall Steam on Mac: saves, libraries, space and login

Take five minutes for these checks first. Two of them are hard to redo once the Steam folder is gone.

• Saves: Valve says a game's store page shows a Steam Cloud logo when it uses Steam Cloud, and many games do not. Valve says it is not likely to be able to recover lost saves, so copy the userdata folder somewhere safe. Ask a game's developer where any other saves are kept.
• Library folders: note every Steam library, including ones on external drives. The Storage page in Steam's settings lists them, and so does the Terminal command below.
• Space: note the available space in System Settings > General > Storage, as Apple's guide to freeing up storage explains. That is on macOS Ventura 13 or later. Earlier versions use About This Mac > Storage.
• Login: Valve warns that you will need your account name and password to reinstall your games later. Make sure you have both.

To measure how much space Steam uses, games included, run this in Terminal. It only reads, so it changes nothing:

du -sh ~/Library/Application\ Support/Steam

To list every library Steam knows about, run this. Each line it prints is one library path, and the first is usually the Steam folder itself:

grep '"path"' ~/Library/Application\ Support/Steam/steamapps/libraryfolders.vdf

Copy that list into a note. You will need it in Step 3, in case Step 2 deletes the file that holds it.

Step 1: Quit Steam and move it to the Trash

If Steam opens when you log in, turn that off while it is still installed. Choose Steam > Settings, open Interface, and switch off "Run Steam when my computer starts". If you skip this, Step 5 covers the same thing from System Settings.

Now choose Steam > Quit Steam from the menu bar. Closing the window is not enough, because a Mac app keeps running with no windows open. If Steam says it is finishing its cloud sync, let it finish.

Then open Applications in Finder and drag Steam to the Trash, or select it and choose File > Move to Trash. If macOS asks for a name and password, enter an administrator's details, as Apple's guide to deleting apps describes.

Valve offers no uninstaller for Mac. Its Mac page lists manual steps only, so everything below uses Finder, System Settings and, now and then, Terminal.

Step 2: Delete the Steam folder, or everything except steamapps

Now remove the part that holds the real client. In Finder, click the Go menu and hold the Option key until Library appears, then choose it. Open Application Support, then Steam.

Warning: steamapps holds your installed games, and Valve notes it also holds any local save files. Deleting it removes every game in this library. Games that do not use Steam Cloud can lose their progress for good, so back up anything you want first.

Valve gives two options. Pick the one that fits:

• Remove everything: drag the whole Steam folder to the Trash.
• Keep your games: select everything inside the Steam folder except steamapps, and drag it to the Trash. Valve's page writes the name as SteamApps, while a current install shows steamapps. It is the same folder.

If you keep steamapps, a prompt titled "Deleting Steam?" may appear, asking whether Steam should delete the game content it still has on disk. It comes from steamclean, a small Valve helper that lives inside steamapps, not from macOS. Choose Leave files to keep your games, or Delete files if you have changed your mind.

Step 3: Remove other library folders and per-game leftovers

Steam can keep games on more than one drive. Each extra library is a folder with its own steamapps folder inside, and deleting the Steam folder in your Library does not touch it.

Warning: Trashing a library folder removes every game in it. A folder you picked by hand as a library can also hold files that are not from Steam, so open each library folder first. If it holds only Steam content (a steamapps folder and a few small Steam files), you can trash the whole folder; if it holds anything else, trash only its steamapps folder.

Connect any external drive first, because its library will not show otherwise. Take the list of library paths you saved, open each one in Finder with Go > Go to Folder, and drag the library folder to the Trash. Skip the first path if it is the Steam folder you already removed.

Next, check for game shortcuts. When Steam installs a game, it can offer to add a desktop shortcut or an application shortcut. Look on your Desktop, and in the Applications folder inside your home folder (Go > Home, then Applications), for items named after your games.

Some games also keep files outside Steam. Valve says each developer decides which files use Steam Cloud, and its Steam Cloud page points you to the developer for saves stored elsewhere. Look in ~/Library/Application Support, ~/Library/Preferences and ~/Library/Caches for folders named after a game or its developer, and delete only the ones you recognise.

Step 4: Remove Steam preferences and cache files

Steam's bundle ID on the Mac is com.valvesoftware.steam, and its leftover files share the com.valvesoftware prefix. This command lists every match in the usual Library folders. It only reads, so nothing is deleted:

find ~/Library -maxdepth 2 -iname '*valvesoftware*'

On a current install checked on macOS Tahoe 26, it returned three items:

• ~/Library/Preferences/com.valvesoftware.steam.helper.plist, the settings file for Steam's built-in web helper
• ~/Library/HTTPStorages/com.valvesoftware.steam.helper, the web helper's stored web data
• ~/Library/LaunchAgents/com.valvesoftware.steamclean.plist, the launch agent covered in Step 5

That search misses Steam's crash reporter file in ~/Library/Application Support/CrashReporter, a small plist named steam_osx_ followed by an ID, so run this check too and drag any match to the Trash:

ls ~/Library/Application\ Support/CrashReporter | grep -i steam

Older installs may show more items with the same prefix. Anything the command prints belongs to Valve, so skip items for another Valve app you still use. Open each parent folder with Go > Go to Folder and drag the item to the Trash.

Steam writes its logs inside its own folder, in ~/Library/Application Support/Steam/logs, so Step 2 already removed them. On the install we checked, Steam had nothing in ~/Library/Caches or ~/Library/Saved Application State.

Step 5: Check login items and background items

Start with the launch agent. Steam installs com.valvesoftware.steamclean.plist in ~/Library/LaunchAgents. It runs the steamclean helper in steamapps whenever the Steam client folder changes.

If you are removing Steam for good, drag that file to the Trash. It does no harm to keep it if you plan to reinstall soon. Then check the shared launch folders for anything from Valve:

ls /Library/LaunchAgents /Library/LaunchDaemons | grep -i valve

No output means nothing from Valve is there, which matches the install we checked. One older audio add-on uses another name, and the end of this step covers it.

Next, open System Settings > General. The pane is called Login Items on macOS Ventura 13 and Sonoma 14, and Login Items & Extensions on macOS Sequoia 15 and later, per Apple's guide to login items.

• Open at Login: if Steam is listed, select it and click the minus button. Apple notes that a warning icon next to an item means it was moved or deleted.
• Background items: this list is called Allow in the Background on macOS Ventura 13 to Sequoia 15, and App Background Activity on macOS Tahoe 26 and later. The steamclean helper appears here under Steam. If it is still listed after you delete the file and restart, switch it off.

Last, check for Steam's optional audio drivers. The Steam client carries an installer for Steam Streaming Audio, a virtual microphone and speakers used for streaming. This command shows whether it was ever installed:

pkgutil --pkgs | grep -i valvesoftware

If it prints com.valvesoftware.SteamStreamingAudio, the package installed two drivers in /Library/Audio/Plug-Ins/HAL: SteamStreamingMicrophone.driver and SteamStreamingSpeakers.driver. Drag both to the Trash in Finder and enter an administrator password when asked. For this or any other Valve package the command prints, pkgutil --files followed by the package name lists what it installed.

The Steam client also carries an older audio support package from Ambrosia Software, and the Valve searches above do not find it. This command shows whether it was ever installed:

pkgutil --pkgs | grep -i ambrosia

If it prints a package name, pkgutil --files followed by that name lists what it added. Leave it in place if you still use other Ambrosia software.

Step 6: Empty the Trash and check your free space

Look through the Trash once more before you empty it. Emptying is permanent, and that includes any games and saves you moved there. When you are sure, choose Finder > Empty Trash.

Then restart your Mac. That clears anything Steam still had in memory and stops macOS from loading the deleted launch agent.

Open System Settings > General > Storage again and compare the available space with the figure you noted. Apple says this view updates automatically as you free space. It also counts space used by Time Machine local snapshots as available, as Apple's page on local snapshots explains, so snapshots should not hide what you freed.

Games on an external drive free space on that drive, not your startup disk. To find what else is filling your Mac, the manual method in the OmniDiskSweeper alternatives round-up uses only tools built into macOS. If you are weighing a disk map tool, the GrandPerspective alternatives page compares them.

Confirm nothing from Steam is still running

After the restart, open Activity Monitor and type Steam in the search field. While Steam runs, you would see entries such as Steam and Steam Helper. After a full removal, none should appear.

If you use Microsoft Teams, its audio driver can match that search too, because its name contains the same letters. It is not part of Steam. If a real Steam entry is still listed, select it and quit it, as Apple's Activity Monitor guide shows.

Terminal gives the same answer in two lines. The first looks for any running process with Steam in its path. Keep the capital S and leave out the -i option, because a case-insensitive search also matches that Teams driver:

pgrep -fl Steam

The second lists any launch job from Valve that macOS still has loaded:

launchctl list | grep -i valve

No output from either command means nothing from Steam is running or scheduled to run.

Reinstalling Steam without downloading every game again

If you kept steamapps, a clean reinstall is quick. Download and run the installer from Steam's official download page, then open Steam and sign in. Steam downloads its client again and should find the games in the folder you kept.

If a game shows as not installed, Valve's advice is to start its install anyway. As long as the game's folder is still in place, Steam recognises the existing files during the download instead of fetching everything again.

For a library on another drive, choose Steam > Settings, open Storage, and pick Add Drive from the drive menu. Then point Steam at the library folder you kept.

Frequently Asked Questions

Does uninstalling Steam delete my games?

Only if you delete steamapps. Dragging the Steam app to the Trash removes neither games nor saves, because they live in the Steam folder in ~/Library/Application Support (games in steamapps, Steam Cloud copies in userdata).

Where are Steam games stored on a Mac?

In the default library, each game has its own folder in ~/Library/Application Support/Steam/steamapps/common. A library on another drive has the same layout, with a steamapps/common folder inside the library folder. The Storage page in Steam's settings lists every library, with each game's size.

How do I delete Steam games on a Mac without opening Steam?

Quit Steam, open steamapps/common, and drag the game's folder to the Trash. Steam also keeps a small appmanifest file for each game in steamapps, which Valve's developer docs describe as the game's install state.

Delete the one whose number matches the game's app ID, the number in its Steam Store page address. Steam's own Uninstall is safer whenever you can open it.

Why can't I move Steam to the Trash?

Usually it is still running, so quit it from the Steam menu or force quit it with Option, Command and Esc. If macOS says the app is in use, Apple's advice is to make sure it is not open. If that fails, restart your Mac or start up in Safe Mode, then try again.

Does uninstalling Steam delete my Steam account or the games I bought?

No. Removing the app and its files only affects this Mac, and your games stay in your Library. Deleting the account is a separate request to Steam Support, and Valve's account deletion page says it is permanent: game licences and wallet funds go with it.

Why didn't my free space go up after I emptied the Trash?

First check that the Trash really is empty, and that you are looking at the drive the games were on. If you kept steamapps, your games still take space, and the du -sh command above shows how much. Apple says the Storage view counts snapshot space as available, so snapshots are not the reason.

Removing other apps from this Mac

Steam is mostly one large folder with a few small helpers around it. Security apps go much deeper: the Kaspersky guide deals with system extensions and the leftovers that block another antivirus from installing.

At the other end, the Sublime Text guide covers an app that installs almost nothing outside its own folders. The Safari guide explains why some apps that ship with macOS cannot be removed at all, and what to clean up instead.

Every guide here follows the same shape: what the app installs and where, whether the vendor offers an uninstaller, the manual steps for the leftovers, and a final check that nothing is still running. Everything is done with Finder, System Settings and, occasionally, Terminal.