How to uninstall MacDroid on Mac

MacDroid mounts an Android phone in Finder, so the files you see there live on the phone, and removing MacDroid from your Mac does not touch them. Finish any copy and unmount the phone before you start; deleting something inside the mounted phone deletes it on the phone. Removing the app does not cancel a MacDroid subscription. This guide covers MacDroid downloaded from macdroid.app and the Homebrew cask macdroid; both install MacDroid.app with the bundle ID us.electronic.macdroid.

Unmount the phone first

1. Let any copy to or from the phone finish.
2. In MacDroid, select the device and click Unmount, the same place you mounted it (MacDroid: connect and mount using ADB). You can also eject it in Finder's sidebar.
3. Unplug the phone.
4. If you used ADB mode, you turned on Developer options and USB debugging on the phone for MacDroid. Turn USB debugging off again in the phone's settings if nothing else needs it.

Quit MacDroid and remove the app

Electronic Team's steps are to choose Quit from the MacDroid menu in the menu bar, drag MacDroid from Applications to the Trash, then empty the Trash (MacDroid uninstallation). For permanent removal, finish the checks below, then select only the confirmed MacDroid items in the Trash and choose Delete Immediately. Leave unrelated Trash items alone.

MacDroid ships two extensions inside the app, a Finder extension and a File Provider extension that presents the phone in Finder, plus a small launcher used for opening it at login. All three leave with the app.

Where MacDroid keeps its data

Once the phone is unmounted and the app has quit, copy wanted local settings to a backup location. Open each exact path with Finder Shift + Command + G, move only the items you chose to remove to the Trash, and skip missing paths. Leave phone files and shared parent folders alone.

These locations come from the Homebrew zap list and the test; Electronic Team's page lists none of them.

Check the result

After the app is in the Trash, run these read-only commands:

pgrep -il macdroid
pluginkit -m | grep -i us.electronic.macdroid
ls -d "$HOME/Library/Group Containers/XS85JU6YZ3.us.electronic.macdroid"

• No output from pgrep means MacDroid is not running. A listed process means the app or one of its extensions is still active.
• If pluginkit -m succeeds but the filter prints nothing, its default query returned no line containing us.electronic.macdroid; that does not prove every extension copy is unregistered. A command error leaves the state unknown. A listed line means macOS still has a MacDroid extension registered, so inspect the reported path before treating it as another installed app copy.
• ls -d printing the path means the group container is still there, which is what happened in the test. Once you are sure no copy of MacDroid is left on the Mac, you can move it and ~/Library/Application Scripts/XS85JU6YZ3.us.electronic.macdroid to the Trash in Finder. "No such file or directory" means it is gone.

If you installed it with Homebrew

Mole skips --zap when the zap list reaches data you left unchecked, a path another installed app uses, or anything Mole cannot check, and it still cleans the leftovers you selected.

The macdroid cask's zap list covers ~/Library/Application Scripts/us.electronic.macdroid.AFTFinderSync, ~/Library/Application Support/MacDroid, ~/Library/Application Support/us.electronic.macdroid, the cache, ~/Library/Containers/us.electronic.macdroid.AFTFinderSync, ~/Library/Group Containers/XS85JU6YZ3.us.electronic.macdroid, the cookies file, ~/Library/Logs/MacDroid.log and the preferences file. Running brew uninstall --cask --zap macdroid yourself moves them to the Trash, whatever you ticked in Mole. The list does not name the File Provider extension's folders, the HTTP storage folder or the WebKit data, so a zap leaves those. The group container stays unchecked by default; the ~/Library/Application Support/MacDroid review row can be preselected by the app-data setting when eligible. Leaving either row unchecked prevents --zap. To remove only the app:

brew uninstall --cask macdroid

Homebrew's macdroid cask

What Mole lists

For MacDroid downloaded from macdroid.app:

• The preferences file, Application Support/us.electronic.macdroid, the cache, HTTP storage, cookies, WebKit data, MacDroid.log and the temporary caches are selected by default.
• ~/Library/Containers/us.electronic.macdroid.AFTFinderSync and ~/Library/Application Scripts/us.electronic.macdroid.AFTFinderSync are selected by default.
• ~/Library/Application Support/MacDroid, the mountprovider Containers and Application Scripts folders above, and ~/Library/Application Support/FileProvider/us.electronic.macdroid.mountprovider are listed for review. With Remove data and settings with apps off they start unchecked; with it on, eligible own data can start checked. Inspect those rows after unmounting the phone, and uncheck the settings or File Provider state you want to retain.
• The group container XS85JU6YZ3.us.electronic.macdroid and its Application Scripts folder are listed but not selected. Before removing a group, Mole checks that no other installed app claims it; when that check cannot clear the group, Mole keeps it and the row says it could not confirm that no other app uses the group.
• Files on your phone are never listed.

What this test covered

On September 26, 2026, MacDroid 2.10 was downloaded from Electronic Team's download server, installed, launched once without connecting a phone, and uninstalled with a development build of Mole with every listed row ticked. While it ran, Mole's Status page showed MacDroid as one row of three processes, about 40 MB. The app and 16 of the 18 listed rows went to the Trash, including both extensions' folders and the File Provider folder. Mole kept the group container and its Application Scripts folder, as designed: a copy of MacDroid.app left over from an earlier test was still elsewhere on the Mac and declares the same group. No login item or background task appeared. An earlier test on September 23, 2026 with the same version also removed the Finder extension and the other rows, and also left the group container; that run found no macFUSE component. No phone was connected, so the unmount and ADB steps come from Electronic Team's documentation.