How to uninstall ONLYOFFICE on Mac

Your documents stay wherever you saved them; removing ONLYOFFICE Desktop Editors does not touch them. What goes with the app is ~/Library/Application Support/asc.onlyoffice.ONLYOFFICE, and that folder also holds the recovery copies of documents that were never saved. ONLYOFFICE's recovery article puts them in its recovery subfolder. Rescue anything you need from there first. This guide covers ONLYOFFICE from its official download and from the Homebrew cask onlyoffice.

Recover unsaved documents first

  1. Open ONLYOFFICE and go to Recent files › Recover files, as the recovery article describes. Open each file you still need and save it to a normal folder.
  2. Note the cloud portals or document servers you connected, if any. Your files on those servers stay there, but the connections are part of the app's local data.
  3. Quit ONLYOFFICE.

ONLYOFFICE's macOS page warns that uninstalling deletes the app's configuration, caches, service files and "user-generated data used for application startup", and that it cannot be undone without a backup made beforehand.

Quit ONLYOFFICE and remove the app

  1. Quit ONLYOFFICE from the ONLYOFFICE menu. In the recorded test it ran eight processes, including its editors_helper processes, which Mole's Status page folded into one ONLYOFFICE row.
  2. Search Activity Monitor for ONLYOFFICE and editors_helper and check that they have exited.
  3. Move ONLYOFFICE from Finder's Applications folder to the Trash. This is the first step of the vendor's own instructions.

The test did not show a login item or background item. The app updates itself through Sparkle, which runs only while the app is open.

Where ONLYOFFICE keeps its data

The vendor's page removes the three locations below with rm -rf commands. Moving them to the Trash in Finder does the same job and leaves you a way back.

Location What it holds What to do
~/Library/Application Support/asc.onlyoffice.ONLYOFFICE Settings, caches, recent files, and unsaved-document recovery in recovery Remove after you have recovered what you need
~/Library/Preferences/asc.onlyoffice.ONLYOFFICE.plist App preferences Remove with the app
~/Library/Caches/asc.onlyoffice.ONLYOFFICE App cache; it was not present on the test Mac Remove if it exists
~/Library/Containers/org.sparkle-project.Downloader Sparkle's download helper, shared with other apps that update through Sparkle Leave it
~/Library/HTTPStorages/asc.onlyoffice.ONLYOFFICE and ~/Library/Preferences/asc.onlyoffice.editors-helper-renderer.plist Web storage and helper preferences in the current cask After recovery and quitting, remove only confirmed unwanted app files

The current cask also names recent-document files under ~/Library/Application Support/com.apple.sharedfilelist/com.apple.LSSharedFileList.ApplicationRecentDocuments matching asc.onlyoffice.onlyoffice.sfl*. Open that parent with Finder Shift + Command + G, inspect the individual filenames and move only a confirmed unwanted ONLYOFFICE file to the Trash. * is a filename pattern, not a literal path to paste; keep the shared parent and other apps' records.

Check the result

pgrep -il -f ONLYOFFICE.app
ls -d "$HOME/Library/Application Support/asc.onlyoffice.ONLYOFFICE" ~/Library/Caches/asc.onlyoffice.ONLYOFFICE
  • No output from pgrep means this full-command pattern found no match, not that every ONLYOFFICE helper has exited. Check Activity Monitor for ONLYOFFICE and editors_helper and verify their executable paths before deleting data.
  • ls -d prints each folder that still exists and reports "No such file or directory" for the rest. A surviving Application Support folder can still hold recovery files; open its recovery subfolder to check what remains.

If you installed it with Homebrew

The onlyoffice cask's zap list is ~/Library/Application Support/asc.onlyoffice.ONLYOFFICE, ~/Library/HTTPStorages/asc.onlyoffice.ONLYOFFICE, the recent-documents list, and the preferences files asc.onlyoffice.ONLYOFFICE.plist and asc.onlyoffice.editors-helper-renderer.plist. Running brew uninstall --cask --zap onlyoffice yourself moves the whole list to the Trash, recovery folder included, regardless of Mole's checkboxes. To remove only the app:

brew uninstall --cask onlyoffice

Mole can add --zap only when every path sits inside ~/Library, each actual current zap target is covered by a selected row, and the whole list can be verified without a shared or unknown boundary. The direct-download test does not prove that every cask-only target is selected by default. Any unchecked target still suppresses zap. Untick the Application Support row and Mole leaves --zap out and keeps that folder.

What Mole lists

For ONLYOFFICE from the official download:

  • ~/Library/Application Support/asc.onlyoffice.ONLYOFFICE is selected by default. Recover unsaved documents before you remove it, or untick it.
  • The preferences file, the recent-documents list and the temporary caches filed under asc.onlyoffice.ONLYOFFICE are selected by default.
  • The shared Sparkle download container is not listed.
  • Documents you saved elsewhere are not listed.

What this test covered

On September 26, 2026, ONLYOFFICE 9.4.0 was installed from its official disk image, opened once without connecting a portal, and uninstalled with a development build of Mole with every row ticked. Status showed one ONLYOFFICE row with eight processes using about 903 MB. Five items went to the Trash: the app (1.21 GB), ~/Library/Application Support/asc.onlyoffice.ONLYOFFICE (about 63 MB), the preferences file, the recent-documents list and a temporary cache. Nothing from the list was left on disk, and no login item or background job appeared. Earlier, on September 21, 2026, the same version was removed with the same result, and the shared Sparkle download container was left alone. Saved documents, recovery files, cloud portals and a Homebrew install were not tested.