How to uninstall ProtoPie on Mac

Your ProtoPie prototypes are .pie files you saved yourself, or pies you uploaded to ProtoPie Cloud, and removing the app touches neither. What goes with the app is its own folder, ~/Library/Application Support/ProtoPie, which holds preferences and cached data. Before you start, save any open pie to a file and note which account this Mac is signed in to. This guide covers ProtoPie Studio from the disk image on protopie.io and the Homebrew cask protopie.

Save open pies and check your devices

Save every open prototype to a .pie file outside the app-data folders below, and open the saved copies to check them. If you rely on ProtoPie Cloud, confirm the pies are present there before removing local data. Quit ProtoPie and copy any wanted local settings from ~/Library/Application Support/ProtoPie to an independent backup before deleting that folder. Mole does not scan your documents for them.

ProtoPie's Studio questions say one account can use ProtoPie Studio on up to 2 devices at a time, and that you manage those devices in your account settings. If this Mac is one of the two, remove it there when you stop using it, so another Mac can take the slot. Uninstalling the app does not cancel a subscription either; manage that from your account on the web.

Quit ProtoPie and remove the app

  1. Quit ProtoPie from the ProtoPie menu.
  2. Search Activity Monitor for ProtoPie and check that the app and its Helper processes have exited.
  3. Move ProtoPie from Finder's Applications folder to the Trash.

The recorded tests found no login item, background item or launch agent from ProtoPie.

Where ProtoPie keeps its data

Open each path with Shift + Command + G in Finder and skip the ones that do not exist.

Location What it holds What to do
~/Library/Application Support/ProtoPie App data, including the preference.json ProtoPie's support page tells you to delete when the app will not start, plus Chromium caches Remove unless you plan to reinstall
~/Library/Preferences/io.protopie.plist App preferences Remove for a clean start
~/Library/Saved Application State/io.protopie.savedState Saved window state, listed in the cask's zap stanza Safe to remove

The folder was under 4 MB after one launch in the tests. It is not where your pies are saved.

Check the result

Run these read-only commands after the app is in the Trash:

pgrep -il protopie
ls -d "$HOME/Library/Application Support/ProtoPie"
  • If pgrep runs without an error and prints nothing, no process name matched protopie; differently named helpers are outside that match. Inspect a listed PID and executable path in Activity Monitor, then quit only a process confirmed to belong to this app before deleting its data.
  • ls printing the path means the app folder is still there. "No such file or directory" means it is gone. Either result says nothing about your .pie files, which live wherever you saved them.

If you installed it with Homebrew

The protopie cask's zap list includes ~/Library/Application Support/ProtoPie, the preferences file and the saved window state. Running brew uninstall --cask --zap protopie yourself moves them to the Trash, whatever you selected in Mole. To keep the app folder, remove only the app:

brew uninstall --cask protopie

Mole checks Homebrew's full removal list and skips --zap when it reaches unchecked data, shared files or anything it cannot verify. It still removes the leftovers you selected. Leaving ~/Library/Application Support/ProtoPie unchecked keeps --zap out, whether the row was initially unchecked or preselected by the data setting.

What Mole lists

For ProtoPie from protopie.io:

  • ~/Library/Application Support/ProtoPie is unchecked with Remove data and settings with apps off; enabling it can preselect eligible reviewed data. Uncheck it if you want to keep settings. The Chromium cache and Crashpad folders inside it, such as Cache, Code Cache and GPUCache, are separate rows selected by default.
  • The io.protopie preferences file, the recent-documents list and the temporary caches filed under the bundle ID are selected by default.
  • Your .pie files and anything in ProtoPie Cloud are not listed.

What this test covered

On September 21, 2026, ProtoPie was copied from the official disk image into Applications, opened without signing in, and uninstalled with a Preview build of Mole 1.15 with everything ticked; there was no Homebrew receipt. The app and its Application Support folder, about 3.8 MB, went to the Trash. On September 26, 2026, it was installed again from the same official download, opened once without signing in, and removed with a development build of Mole with every row ticked. Mole's Status view showed it as one row of 12 processes, about 718 MB. All 13 items went to the Trash and nothing from the list, no process and no startup item was left. Signing in, the device limit, ProtoPie Cloud and the Homebrew cask were not tested.