Removing apps from your Mac might often prove to be a difficult endeavor, particularly for those who aren’t accustomed to how it’s done. In this piece, I’ll walk you through how to remove Slack from your Mac. Having navigated through this procedure recently, I’m equipped to offer you tips and insights from my own experience to streamline the removal process.
Step 1: Quit Slack and Close all its Processes
The first step in uninstalling Slack from your Mac is to ensure that the application is not running. To do this, go to the menu bar at the top of your screen and click on the Slack icon. From the drop-down menu, select “Quit Slack” to close the application. Additionally, make sure to close any Slack-related processes running in the background by opening the Activity Monitor (search for it using Spotlight) and terminating any Slack processes you find.
Step 2: Delete the Slack Application
Once you have ensured that Slack is not running on your Mac, it’s time to delete the application itself. Open a Finder window and navigate to the “Applications” folder. Look for the Slack app and drag it to the Trash bin in your Dock. Alternatively, you can right-click on the Slack app and select “Move to Trash.” Keep in mind that this action will only remove the application and not its associated files.
Step 3: Remove Slack’s Associated Files
While deleting the Slack app removes most of its files, there might still be some remaining files and folders that need to be removed manually. These files are typically located in different directories on your Mac. To find and delete them:
- Open a Finder window and click on the “Go” menu in the menu bar.
- Hold down the “Option” key to reveal the “Library” option and click on it.
- In the Library folder, navigate to the following directories one by one and delete any Slack-related files or folders you find:
- – Application Support/Slack
- – Caches/com.tinyspeck.slackmacgap
- – Containers/com.tinyspeck.slackmacgap
- – Preferences/com.tinyspeck.slackmacgap.plist
Make sure to empty the Trash after deleting these files to permanently remove them from your system.
Step 4: Clear Slack Data from the Keychain
Slack may have stored some data in your macOS Keychain, which means that even after uninstalling the application, some remnants may still exist. To remove this data:
- Open the “Keychain Access” application. You can find it by using Spotlight or navigating to Applications > Utilities > Keychain Access.
- In the Keychain Access window, locate and select the “login” keychain in the left sidebar.
- Type “Slack” in the search field on the top-right corner to filter the results.
- Right-click on any Slack-related entries and select “Delete” to remove them.
Conclusion
Uninstalling Slack from your Mac may seem like a daunting task at first, but by following these steps, you can ensure that all traces of the application are removed from your system. Remember to quit Slack, delete the application, remove associated files, and clear Slack data from the Keychain. By doing so, you can have a clean and clutter-free Mac. If you ever decide to reinstall Slack in the future, you can start fresh without any remnants from the previous installation.
