How to uninstall Kiro on Mac

Kiro's CLI reference describes ~/.kiro, the folder behind its KIRO_HOME setting, as the home of your global agents, prompts, skills, steering, settings and sessions. In this test the Kiro app also kept its chat sessions there, as plain text files. Removing the Kiro app does not remove that folder, so decide on its own whether you want to keep it. On first launch Kiro also installs a kiro command in /usr/local/bin and adds a shell-integration line to ~/.zshrc and ~/.bashrc; neither goes away with the app. This guide covers the official Mac download from kiro.dev and the Homebrew cask kiro.

Sign out and quit

If you are signed in, look for a sign-out option in Kiro's account menu first. In this test Kiro kept its sign-in token in ~/.aws/sso/cache/kiro-auth-token.json, inside the folder the AWS CLI uses for its own configuration. Kiro's CLI reference documents a separate kiro-cli logout that clears authentication tokens and session credentials while keeping agent configurations, saved conversations, settings and MCP server configurations. The IDE's own sign-out was not checked in either test. Quit Kiro from its application menu and check Activity Monitor for a lingering process.

Move Kiro to Trash

Open the Applications folder in Finder and move Kiro to Trash. Kiro added no login item in these tests.

Review app data

Press Shift + Command + G in Finder and check the paths below. Skip any that are missing.

The ~/.kiro description comes from Kiro's documentation; the token file, ~/.kiro-shared and the command link are what this test found on disk.

Remove the kiro command and the shell line

First check what is left:

ls -l /usr/local/bin/kiro
grep -n 'kiro --locate-shell-integration-path' ~/.zshrc ~/.bashrc

• If ls -l shows /usr/local/bin/kiro pointing into Kiro.app and you have removed that app, the link is left over. "No such file or directory" means there is nothing to remove.
• grep prints the file name and line number of each Kiro line. No output means neither file has one, and "No such file or directory" means that file does not exist.

The link belongs to the system, so removing it asks for your administrator password. Run this only after the check above shows it pointing into the Kiro app you removed, and remove only that one entry, never the /usr/local/bin folder:

sudo rm /usr/local/bin/kiro

For the shell line, open ~/.zshrc in a text editor, for example with open -e ~/.zshrc, delete the line grep reported (it starts with [[ "$TERM_PROGRAM" == "kiro" ]], the form Kiro's troubleshooting page documents for shell integration), save, and do the same in ~/.bashrc. The line only runs inside Kiro's terminal, so leaving it does no harm in other terminals, but it points at a command that no longer exists. Change nothing else in those files.

If you installed it with Homebrew

The kiro cask links the kiro command into Homebrew's own bin folder, and a plain uninstall removes that link. Its zap list trashes Kiro's recent-documents list under ~/Library/Application Support/com.apple.sharedfilelist, ~/Library/Application Support/Kiro, ~/Library/Preferences/dev.kiro.desktop.plist and ~/Library/Saved Application State/dev.kiro.desktop.savedState, and it has an rmdir step for ~/.kiro, which removes that folder only when it is empty. Running brew uninstall --cask --zap kiro yourself trashes the four items whatever you ticked in Mole, while ~/.kiro stays as long as anything is saved in it. Homebrew does not touch ~/.kiro-shared, the token file or the shell lines. To keep the Application Support folder, leave --zap out:

brew uninstall --cask kiro

When Mole removes a Homebrew-installed Kiro, the empty-folder rmdir step does not count as deleting user files. Mole checks the entire removal list before using --zap; any unchecked, shared or unverifiable item prevents it, while selected leftovers are cleaned separately. Leave ~/Library/Application Support/Kiro unchecked to keep it. Checking that folder alone does not guarantee --zap. Homebrew Kiro cask

Check the result

pgrep -il kiro
ls -d /Applications/Kiro.app
ls -d "$HOME/Library/Application Support/Kiro"
ls -d "$HOME/.kiro" "$HOME/.kiro-shared" "$HOME/.aws/sso/cache/kiro-auth-token.json"

• No output from pgrep means no Kiro process is running. A listed process means Kiro or a helper is still open; quit it before deleting more.
• ls -d /Applications/Kiro.app printing the path means the app is still there.
• ls -d "$HOME/Library/Application Support/Kiro" printing the path means the app data survived, which is what you get when you leave that row unticked.
• The last ls -d prints whichever of ~/.kiro, ~/.kiro-shared and the token file still exist. A surviving ~/.kiro is expected if you kept your agents, prompts and skills. "No such file or directory" means that item is gone, whether you removed it or never had one.

What Mole lists

For Kiro installed from kiro.dev's own download:

• ~/Library/Preferences/dev.kiro.desktop.plist, ~/Library/Saved Application State/dev.kiro.desktop.savedState, the updater cache, web storage and the Chromium caches and logs inside ~/Library/Application Support/Kiro are listed and selected by default when they exist.
• ~/Library/Application Support/Kiro is listed for review. With Default remove app data off it starts unchecked; with it on, eligible app data can start checked. Back up wanted settings or uncheck this folder.
• ~/.kiro, ~/.kiro-shared and ~/.aws/sso/cache/kiro-auth-token.json are also reviewed data and eligible rows can start checked with that option on. Uncheck data still needed by the Kiro CLI or for reinstalling. Mole lists only that one token file under ~/.aws, never the folder.
• /usr/local/bin/kiro is not removed, and the shell-integration lines are not edited. Remove them yourself as shown above.

What this test covered

Kiro 1.1.14 was downloaded from kiro.dev, copied into Applications, and quit and removed on September 22, 2026 with a development build of Mole, in a run with eight other apps. The rows belonging to Kiro were ticked, and the app (869.4 MB) and 17.5 MB of support data went to the Trash. Kiro was not signed in. ~/.kiro held only skills created before the test (2.4 MB); Mole's list did not include it then and it stayed. A ~/.kiro-shared folder created on the test day was found later.

On September 28, 2026, Kiro 1.1.70 was downloaded from kiro.dev, signed in and used in both Vibe and Spec modes. Its first launch installed /usr/local/bin/kiro, added the shell-integration line to ~/.zshrc and ~/.bashrc, wrote the sign-in token under ~/.aws/sso/cache, imported three extensions into ~/.kiro and created ~/.kiro-shared; it added no login item. Mole's Status page showed Kiro as one row, 20 processes using 1.60 GB. On September 29, 2026 it was quit and removed with a development build of Mole in a run with other AI apps, with every row ticked: the app, the Library rows and the caches went to the Trash. ~/.kiro, ~/.kiro-shared and the token file were not listed in that run and stayed; Mole lists all three now. The kiro link was left pointing at the removed app and the shell lines stayed. Signing out, the Kiro CLI and the Homebrew cask were not tested.