How to uninstall Surge on Mac

Before removing Surge, copy wanted profiles and settings from ~/Library/Application Support/com.nssurge.surge-mac and any other folder below to a backup location. Mole keeps the main data folder on every uninstall, so removing it is your call. For a website install, remove an approved privileged helper through Surge before quitting or trashing the app. Mole's own leftover cleanup does not list or delete that helper; a Homebrew-managed uninstall uses the cask's helper-removal step described below. This guide covers the website download and the Homebrew cask surge.

Remove an installed helper before quitting

For a website install, open Surge Settings, choose System Permissions Overview and click Remove Helper. Follow the administrator-password prompt, then click Open Terminal and complete the password prompt there. Restart as the vendor instructs, then continue below; do not reinstall the helper as the repair FAQ does. Mole's own leftover cleanup leaves this helper alone; this website-install workflow is separate from the Homebrew cask's uninstall step. Surge helper workflow

Quit Surge

Quit Surge from its menu bar icon, then check that no Surge process is left with the command in "Check the result".

Remove the app

Move Surge.app from Applications to the Trash. Surge Dashboard lives inside Surge.app and goes with it.

Where the data lives

These are the folders Surge's own reset guide deletes, plus the extra paths in Homebrew's zap list. After the helper workflow and quitting, press Finder Shift + Command + G to open each exact data path you chose to remove and move it individually to the Trash. Skip missing paths and leave shared parent folders alone. The helper row is handled by the workflow above, not by trashing it here.

Surge's reset guide also lists ~/Library/Preferences/com.nssurge.surge-dashboard.plist and ~/Library/Application Support/com.nssurge.surge-dashboard; back up wanted Dashboard settings, then remove these individually if you no longer need them. Surge: Mac reset

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 Mole removes a Homebrew-managed Surge, it also invokes the cask's ordinary uninstall, even without --zap. That step unloads and deletes the helper when the required administrator privileges are available; check the reported result and the helper file afterwards. Removing the cask also removes the Surge Dashboard.app link in Applications and the surge-cli and surge-dhcpd links in Homebrew's bin and sbin. Its zap list deletes every data path in the table above plus all com.nssurge.surge* preferences and saved window state; brew uninstall --cask --zap surge removes them, whatever you ticked in Mole, including the data folder Mole keeps. Mole leaves --zap out whenever that data folder exists, because it is on the keep list, and whenever ~/Library/Application Support/Surge is unchecked. That review row can be preselected when the app-data setting is on; uncheck it to retain the data. Homebrew surge cask

To remove the app, links and helper but keep your data:

brew uninstall --cask surge

Check the result

pgrep -il Surge
launchctl list | grep -i nssurge
ls -l /Library/PrivilegedHelperTools/com.nssurge.surge-mac.helper
ls -d "$HOME/Library/Application Support/com.nssurge.surge-mac"

No output from pgrep means Surge is not running. If launchctl list succeeds but the filter prints nothing, the current user job list has no line containing nssurge; that does not prove every Surge service has stopped, including system-domain helper jobs. A command error leaves the state unknown. ls -l on the helper reports "No such file or directory" if it was never installed or has been removed, and prints the file if it is still there. ls -d printing the data folder is expected after a Mole uninstall.

What Mole lists

• The preferences file, Caches, HTTPStorages, ~/Library/Logs/Surge and the Bugsnag folders for com.nssurge.surge-mac are listed and selected by default.
• ~/Library/Application Support/Surge is listed for review. With Remove data and settings with apps off it starts unchecked; with it on, eligible own data can start checked. Uncheck it if you want that data to stay.
• ~/Library/Application Support/com.nssurge.surge-mac is on Mole's built-in keep list and is never removed.
• The privileged helper and its launchd job are not listed by Mole's own leftover scanner. For a Homebrew-managed install, Mole invokes the cask's ordinary uninstall step, which attempts to unload and delete the helper even when --zap is skipped; administrator privileges and the actual uninstall result still determine success.

What this test covered

On September 23, 2026, Surge 6.9.1 was installed and uninstalled with a development build of Mole whose test hook ticks every listed row, so the run shows what was listed and removed, not the default ticks; the default selection above comes from Mole's rules. The helper was never approved, so it was never installed and its removal was not tested. ~/Library/Application Support/com.nssurge.surge-mac was skipped by the keep list. The two bugsnag-shared-com.nssurge.surge-mac folders were not listed in that run; Mole's rules were then extended to list them, and that change has not been checked on a released build. Signing in, Enhanced Mode and the Dashboard were not tested.