Uninstall Ghostty on Mac

Back up ~/.config/ghostty/config before removing Ghostty if you have customized it; a fresh install starts from Ghostty's defaults. Ghostty has no account and nothing to sign out of, so removal is just the app and its local files. These steps cover the official download and the Homebrew cask ghostty, which installs the same app.

Quit Ghostty and remove the app

Ghostty runs no background helper or login item, and closing its last window does not quit it. From the app menu choose Quit Ghostty (Command + Q), then move Ghostty from Applications to the Trash. If Ghostty still shows in System Settings › General › Login Items & Extensions after removal, that is a leftover record of an app that once ran, not a sign it is still running; turn it off there if you want it gone.

Where Ghostty keeps its files

Ghostty reads its config from two places on macOS and loads both if they exist: the XDG path and a macOS Application Support path. Ghostty's configuration docs cover the full syntax.

Ghostty's man pages, shell completions (bash, fish, zsh) and CLI (ghostty) ship inside Ghostty.app/Contents/Resources, so removing the app removes them too; there is nothing to uninstall separately in /usr/local or /opt/homebrew. A Homebrew install also links the man pages and completions into Homebrew's prefix; brew uninstall --cask ghostty removes those links.

Shell integration

Ghostty's shell integration for zsh, fish, and Nushell is automatic and does not write files into your home directory: it works by pointing environment variables at scripts inside the app bundle for the duration of the Ghostty session, so quitting or removing the app leaves nothing behind in your shell startup files. Bash is the exception on macOS, because Apple ships an old Bash that cannot load Ghostty's integration automatically; if you added the documented manual source line to your own .bashrc for Bash support, remove that line yourself after uninstalling. Shell integration reference

Check the result

Run these read-only commands in another terminal app:

pgrep -il ghostty
launchctl list | grep -i mitchellh
ls -d ~/.config/ghostty ~/Library/Application\ Support/com.mitchellh.ghostty

No output from pgrep means Ghostty has quit. No output from launchctl list means Ghostty has no background job loaded, which is expected: it never registers one. The ls command shows which of the two config locations still exist; No such file or directory for both means you never created a config, or already removed it.

If you installed it with Homebrew

Mole skips --zap when its list reaches unchecked or shared data, or cannot be fully checked, and still cleans the leftovers you selected.

The current ghostty cask requests that Ghostty quit during removal, but save your work and quit it yourself first. If you run brew uninstall --cask --zap ghostty yourself, the zap list covers every path in the table above (~/.cache/ghostty, ~/.config/ghostty, and the com.mitchellh.ghostty Application Support, Caches, Preferences, Saved Application State, HTTPStorages and WebKit entries), so it removes your config along with the app whatever you tick in Mole. Back up ~/.config/ghostty/config first, or run without zap to keep everything but the app itself:

brew uninstall --cask ghostty

In the recorded test, the zap step found only a 42-byte, already-empty preferences file; the test Mac had never created ~/.config/ghostty, so nothing else was lost. Ghostty Homebrew cask

What Mole lists

For a Ghostty installed from the official download:

• ~/Library/Application Support/com.mitchellh.ghostty, ~/Library/Caches/com.mitchellh.ghostty, the com.mitchellh.ghostty preferences file, saved window state, HTTPStorages and WebKit data are all listed and selected by default. If you keep your config at ~/Library/Application Support/com.mitchellh.ghostty/config, back it up or untick that row before removing.
• Mole can also list ~/.config/ghostty and ~/.cache/ghostty from the cask’s data locations. They are unselected with Remove data and settings with apps off (the default); these cask-only locations outside Library remain unselected when that option is on. Back up the config and untick its row if you want to keep it.

What this test covered

Ghostty was installed from Homebrew (installed since March 2026 on the test Mac) and uninstalled with a development build of Mole on September 18, 2026, at the maintainer's request. The completion screen reported no remnants for Ghostty: the app had almost no data on disk, ~/.config/ghostty had never been created, and the Homebrew cask receipt was cleared. A login item ghost for com.mitchellh.ghostty remained in System Settings after removal, the same harmless BTM record other removed apps leave behind; Mole does not delete that record. The official direct download was not uninstalled in this test.