How to Uninstall Bitwarden From Your Mac

Bitwarden’s desktop app is more conservative than 1Password — fewer integrations, no SSH agent, no system-wide autofill on macOS (autofill happens through the browser extensions). That makes uninstalling cleaner. The catch is the encrypted vault cache: Bitwarden stores a local encrypted copy of your vault for offline access, and if you don’t sign out before uninstalling, that cache file lingers in ~/Library indefinitely.

Here’s the full removal on macOS Sonoma 14 and Sequoia 15.

Export your vault first

Before anything else, export your data. Even though Bitwarden is cloud-synced, having a local backup before uninstalling is good hygiene.

1. Open Bitwarden.
2. File → Export Vault.
3. Choose JSON (encrypted) or CSV.
4. Save somewhere safe.

Encrypted JSON requires your master password to decrypt — safer to keep on disk than a CSV. Plain JSON or CSV are easier to import into other password managers if you’re switching.

Confirm you can sign in to bitwarden.com (or your self-hosted instance) in a browser. The cloud account is the source of truth.

Sign out and quit

Inside Bitwarden, click the account icon (top-right) → Log out. This wipes the local encrypted vault cache and invalidates the session.

Then quit: Cmd+Q.

In Activity Monitor, search “Bitwarden” — the main app and any helper processes should be gone after the quit. Force-quit anything left.

Drag Bitwarden to the Trash

Open Finder → Applications → drag Bitwarden to the Trash. The app bundle is around 200 MB.

If you also have “Bitwarden CLI” or “Bitwarden Desktop” with different names (rare on Mac, but possible if you installed multiple builds), drag those too.

Where Bitwarden stores data

Bitwarden’s bundle ID is com.bitwarden.desktop. The app store version uses the same ID.

• ~/Library/Application Support/Bitwarden/ — encrypted vault cache, session data, logs. The big one.
• ~/Library/Caches/com.bitwarden.desktop/ — image and favicon cache
• ~/Library/Caches/com.bitwarden.desktop.ShipIt/ — Squirrel auto-updater
• ~/Library/Preferences/com.bitwarden.desktop.plist — preferences
• ~/Library/Saved Application State/com.bitwarden.desktop.savedState/ — window state
• ~/Library/Cookies/com.bitwarden.desktop.binarycookies — cookies for the auth flow
• ~/Library/HTTPStorages/com.bitwarden.desktop/ — modern web storage
• ~/Library/Logs/Bitwarden/ — diagnostic logs

If you got Bitwarden from the Mac App Store, check ~/Library/Containers/com.bitwarden.desktop/ instead — App Store apps are sandboxed.

Open Finder, Shift+Cmd+G, paste each, delete what’s there.

Browser extensions

Bitwarden’s autofill on Mac happens through the browser extensions, not the desktop app. Removing the desktop app doesn’t remove the extensions.

• Safari: Settings → Extensions → uncheck Bitwarden → Uninstall.
• Chrome / Brave / Arc / Edge: chrome://extensions → Bitwarden → Remove.
• Firefox: about:addons → Extensions → Bitwarden → Remove.

The Safari extension on Mac is a separate app bundle called “Bitwarden” in /Applications/ — but it’s the same as the desktop app. Removing the desktop app should remove the Safari extension binary; you just need to disable the Safari extension setting.

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The Bitwarden CLI

If you ever installed bw from npm or Homebrew:

which bw

If it returns a path, remove it:

brew uninstall bitwarden-cli       # if Homebrew install
npm uninstall -g @bitwarden/cli    # if npm install

Or manually delete the binary at the path which bw returned.

The CLI also stores config:

• ~/.config/Bitwarden CLI/ — config and session
• ~/.bitwarden-cli/ — older path; remove if present

Login items

Bitwarden doesn’t add itself to login items by default, but if you toggled “Start automatically on login” in Settings:

1. System Settings → General → Login Items & Extensions.
2. Remove Bitwarden entries.

That’s usually it — Bitwarden doesn’t run as a background agent on Mac, so there shouldn’t be an “Allow in the Background” entry.

Keychain cleanup

Bitwarden uses the Keychain to store the encryption key for the local vault cache (so you don’t have to type your master password every time you unlock).

1. Open Keychain Access.
2. Search “Bitwarden.”
3. Delete the matching entries — typically “Bitwarden Safe Storage” and a session entry.

These are critical to remove if you didn’t sign out before uninstalling, because the local vault cache is encrypted with this key.

URL handler

Bitwarden registers a few URL schemes (bitwarden://) for deep links. Like other Electron apps, the registration sticks around after uninstall. Rebuild Launch Services if bitwarden:// URLs are misbehaving:

/System/Library/Frameworks/CoreServices.framework/Versions/A/Frameworks/LaunchServices.framework/Versions/A/Support/lsregister -kill -r -domain local -domain system -domain user

Otherwise, ignore. Most people never use these links.

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Empty the Trash

Empty the Trash. Recovered space is usually 200–400 MB. Bitwarden’s footprint is small compared to chat apps because it’s not caching media — just credentials.

If macOS warns about files in use, check Activity Monitor for stragglers.

Manual vs. Sweep

Bitwarden’s manual uninstall is one of the simpler ones — eight Library paths, plus the browser extensions and CLI if you installed them. The whole process takes about 5 minutes.

Sweep’s value here is mostly speed and the safety of seeing exactly what’s about to be deleted. For a single one-off Bitwarden uninstall, manual is fine. For someone who frequently tries password managers (Bitwarden, 1Password, Dashlane, KeePassXC, Proton Pass) and wants a clean slate between trials, Sweep handles all of them with the same workflow.

Self-hosted Bitwarden / Vaultwarden

If you were running your own Bitwarden server (Vaultwarden or the official Docker image), uninstalling the desktop app doesn’t touch your server. That’s a separate concern. The desktop app is just a client; your server’s data is wherever you set it up to live.

Make sure you’ve documented the server URL elsewhere if you’re nuking the desktop app, otherwise you’ll need to remember it next time you sign in from a browser or new device.

Reinstalling

If you ever come back to Bitwarden, download from bitwarden.com — the App Store version is also legitimate but slightly behind. Sign in with your existing account, and your vault syncs down. No need to import anything from the export you took.

That’s Bitwarden fully removed. Your vault is safe in the cloud (or on your server), your Mac is one app lighter, and your ~/Library is one bundle ID cleaner.