Uninstall OBS on Mac

Back up your scene collections, profiles and any recordings you want to keep before removing OBS Studio. These steps cover OBS installed from the official disk image and from the Homebrew cask obs; the recorded tests used the Homebrew cask and the official disk image, and the Homebrew section below explains what its zap step deletes.

Export scene collections and profiles first

OBS keeps your scenes, sources and stream/recording settings as scene collections and profiles, and its Scene Collection and Profile menus each have an Export item (Scene Collection › Export, Profile › Export) that saves a copy you can re-import later. Export only writes the JSON configuration, not the media files a scene references, so keep those files in place until you have confirmed the export opens correctly in a fresh install.

Check where your recordings are

OBS records to ~/Movies by default, but the location is configurable per setup. Open OBS, go to Settings › Output, and check the Recording Path on the Recording tab before you remove anything; a custom path will not be under ~/Movies.

Quit OBS and remove the app

1. Stop any active recording or stream and let OBS finish writing the file.
2. Quit OBS from its app menu.
3. Move OBS from Applications to the Trash (official download), or let Homebrew remove it (see below).

Where OBS keeps its data

Recordings and screenshots stay wherever you set them (commonly ~/Movies), and are not part of OBS's own Application Support data; check that folder separately.

Remove the virtual camera

On macOS 13 and later, OBS uses a Camera Extension. OBS's official removal instruction is to uninstall OBS Studio itself. On macOS 15 and later, System Settings › General › Login Items & Extensions › Camera Extensions manages its permission; turning that switch off disables the extension and is not an uninstall action. If it remains registered after app removal, restart and check again, then use OBS virtual camera troubleshooting for the matching macOS version rather than deleting a system extension by hand. The legacy plugin used on macOS 11 and 12 is /Library/CoreMediaIO/Plug-Ins/DAL/obs-mac-virtualcam.plugin; the Homebrew cask removes that exact plugin with or without --zap.

Streaming and recording accounts

Removing OBS does not sign you out of Twitch, YouTube or any other platform, and does not cancel anything there: your stream key and channel live on that platform's servers, not in OBS's local files.

Check the result

Run these read-only commands in Terminal:

pgrep -ilf obs
launchctl list | grep -i obsproject
systemextensionsctl list | grep -i obs
ls -d ~/Library/Application\ Support/obs-studio
ls -d "/Library/CoreMediaIO/Plug-Ins/DAL/obs-mac-virtualcam.plugin"

If these checks complete without errors, no output from pgrep means no process command line matched obs, and no output from the filtered launchctl check means no matching job was listed in the current user session. Confirm that any match belongs to this OBS installation before stopping it; these filters do not establish that every helper or system job has stopped. The systemextensionsctl list line shows whether the virtual camera extension is still registered; an activated enabled or activated waiting for user entry means it is, and its permission switch does not prove it has been uninstalled. A terminated waiting for uninstall on reboot entry requires a restart and another check. ls -d on the Application Support folder either lists the directory, expected if you kept it, or reports "No such file or directory" for that path. A printed directory does not prove that scene collections or profiles are intact; inspect the actual configuration or a verified export. A permission error leaves the path state unknown. The last ls -d reports the same for the legacy DAL plugin; on a current install this path is normally already gone.

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.

When you run brew uninstall --cask --zap obs, the cask's own uninstall step (which runs whether or not you use --zap) quits OBS and deletes the legacy obs-mac-virtualcam.plugin. Its zap list goes further and moves your entire ~/Library/Application Support/obs-studio folder to the Trash, along with HTTPStorages, preferences and saved window state, so the zap step deletes your scene collections and profiles, whatever you have ticked in Mole. Export what you need first, or run the uninstall without zap below. Homebrew OBS cask

brew uninstall --cask obs

In the recorded test, the ordinary uninstall step needed administrator authorization for the system-level plugin delete, and that step sat waiting for authorization long enough that Mole's own timeout kicked in; Mole then moved the app to the Trash rather than retrying, and a follow-up brew uninstall --cask obs (without zap) cleared the receipt. Because zap never ran, ~/Library/Application Support/obs-studio and the preferences file both stayed on disk that time, not because the preferences file is unselected by default (it normally is selected, as below), but because the whole removal fell back to a plain app move instead of running zap or Mole's own selection.

What Mole lists

For OBS installed from the official download:

• ~/Library/Application Support/obs-studio is listed but unselected while Remove data and settings with apps is off, the default. Enabling it can preselect eligible app-owned data; untick this row if you want to keep your scene collections and profiles. Its logs folder is a separate row selected by default.
• ~/Library/HTTPStorages/com.obsproject.obs-studio (and its cookies file), the preferences plist and the saved window state are selected by default.
• The virtual camera Camera Extension and the legacy DAL plugin are outside Mole's uninstall list; the DAL plugin is removed by the Homebrew cask's uninstall step, but only for a Homebrew install.

What this test covered

OBS was installed and removed through the Homebrew cask obs on September 17, 2026, with a development build of Mole. The ~/Library/Application Support/obs-studio folder was already the Application Support review row Mole expects. Mole's --zap removal hit its authorization timeout and was demoted to a plain app removal instead of retrying; the app was then removed with brew uninstall --cask obs (no zap), and the Application Support folder and preferences file stayed on disk. The OBS Virtual Camera system extension stayed registered after this uninstall and needed a separate pass through System Settings on this Mac (confirmed later the same week, with systemextensionsctl list returning no entries afterward). On September 26, 2026, OBS 32.2.2 from the official disk image was installed, opened once and removed with a development build of Mole with every row ticked. Mole's Status page showed OBS Studio as one row of two processes. All 5 items, the app and the obs-studio folder included, went to the Trash, none of them was still on disk afterwards, and no login item or launch agent appeared. Scene collection export and import and recording-file handling were not tested.