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How to Completely Uninstall Evernote From Your Mac

Remove Evernote from your Mac including the local cache database, attachments, and the legacy v7 leftovers Evernote leaves behind.

8 min read

Evernote has had a turbulent few years on Mac. Bending Spoons rewrote the app from scratch in Electron, replaced the older native app (Evernote Legacy / v7), and asked everyone to migrate. Many users now have both apps’ data on disk — the old SQLite-backed local cache from Legacy, and the new Electron app’s IndexedDB. Combined, that’s often 5+ GB of duplicated note content.

If you’re switching to a different notes app (Obsidian, Notion, Apple Notes), or just done with Evernote, here’s the full uninstall on macOS Sonoma 14 and Sequoia 15.

Export your notes first

Don’t skip this. Evernote exports as ENEX files (their interchange format), which most other notes apps can import.

  1. Open Evernote.
  2. Right-click any notebook → Export Notebook → Export as .enex.
  3. Repeat for each notebook. There’s no “export everything” button in the new app — you have to do it per notebook.
  4. Save the ENEX files somewhere safe.

If you have hundreds of notebooks, the export is tedious. Evernote Legacy (if you still have it) has a “select all notes → export” option that’s faster — File → Export → All Notes. Use Legacy for export if it’s still installed.

The ENEX files contain everything: notes, attachments, formatting, tags, creation dates. Importing them into Apple Notes, Obsidian, or Notion preserves most of this.

Tip: Apple Notes' built-in importer (File → Import to Notes) accepts ENEX directly. Obsidian needs a community plugin called "Importer." Notion supports ENEX import in its workspace settings. Test the import on one notebook before committing to a full migration.

Sign out and quit

In the new Evernote: Account menu → Sign Out. This invalidates local sync tokens.

Then quit: Cmd+Q.

In Activity Monitor, search “Evernote” — you may see:

  • Evernote — main app
  • Evernote Helper — Electron renderer process
  • EvernoteHelper (one word) — older menu bar helper from Legacy
  • Various “Evernote Helper (Renderer)” or “(GPU)” processes

Force-quit anything still running.

Drag Evernote to the Trash

Open Finder → Applications. Drag Evernote to the Trash. The new app bundle is around 320 MB.

If you also have “Evernote Legacy” or just an older “Evernote” in Applications (some users have both), drag that too. Check your Applications folder carefully — the icons look similar.

Where the new Evernote stores data

The new Evernote (Electron rewrite) uses bundle ID com.evernote.Evernote. Storage:

  • ~/Library/Application Support/Evernote/ — main data folder. Includes cached notes, IndexedDB, GPU cache, Service Worker storage.
  • ~/Library/Caches/com.evernote.Evernote/ — image and font cache
  • ~/Library/Caches/com.evernote.Evernote.ShipIt/ — Squirrel auto-updater
  • ~/Library/Preferences/com.evernote.Evernote.plist — preferences
  • ~/Library/Saved Application State/com.evernote.Evernote.savedState/ — window state
  • ~/Library/Cookies/com.evernote.Evernote.binarycookies — cookies
  • ~/Library/HTTPStorages/com.evernote.Evernote/ — modern web storage
  • ~/Library/Logs/Evernote/ — diagnostic logs

Where Evernote Legacy stores data

Legacy used a different architecture and bundle ID, com.evernote.Evernote for the App Store version or com.evernote.evernote (lowercase) for the older direct download — confusingly similar but distinct.

  • ~/Library/Containers/com.evernote.Evernote/ — sandbox container for App Store Legacy. Contains the SQLite database.
  • ~/Library/Group Containers/Q79WDW8YH9.com.evernote.Evernote/ — shared data
  • ~/Library/Application Support/com.evernote.Evernote/ — additional support
  • ~/Library/Preferences/com.evernote.Evernote.plist — preferences

The Containers folder for Legacy is usually huge — the SQLite database holds every note’s full text and every attachment locally. I’ve seen 8 GB+ on accounts with lots of PDF attachments.

Open Finder, Shift+Cmd+G, paste each path, drag what’s there to the Trash.

Skip the manual huntSweep finds every leftover preference, cache, and support file in seconds. Download Sweep free →

Browser extension

Evernote’s Web Clipper is a browser extension, separate from the desktop app.

  • Chrome / Brave / Arc: chrome://extensions → Evernote Web Clipper → Remove.
  • Safari: Settings → Extensions → Evernote Web Clipper → Uninstall.
  • Firefox: about:addons → Evernote Web Clipper → Remove.

The clipper has its own storage inside your browser, separate from the desktop app’s cache.

Login items

Both Evernote and Evernote Legacy add themselves to login items.

  1. System Settings → General → Login Items & Extensions.
  2. Remove all Evernote entries from “Open at Login” and “Allow in the Background.”

If you don’t see them listed, they’re already gone.

Helper apps and menu bar

Evernote Legacy installed a separate “EvernoteHelper” app for menu bar quick capture. Check:

  • /Applications/Evernote.app/Contents/Library/LoginItems/EvernoteHelper.app — bundled helper
  • It’s removed when you trash the main app, but leftover preferences may live at ~/Library/Preferences/com.evernote.EvernoteHelper.plist

The new Electron Evernote doesn’t have an equivalent helper.

Let Sweep uninstall properlyDrag-to-trash leaves traces. Sweep wipes the app + support files + prefs + caches + helpers all at once. Get Sweep free →

Keychain cleanup

Evernote stores OAuth tokens and the Electron safe storage encryption key in the Keychain.

  1. Open Keychain Access.
  2. Search “Evernote.”
  3. Delete the matching entries.

You’ll also see entries from Evernote Legacy if it was installed. Remove those too.

Spotlight indexing

Evernote Legacy registered a Spotlight metadata importer so notes were searchable from Spotlight. After uninstall, the importer is gone but Spotlight may still have stale entries.

To force a Spotlight rebuild for your home folder:

sudo mdutil -E /

This is rarely necessary but cleans up phantom Spotlight results pointing at deleted Evernote notes.

Empty the Trash

Empty the Trash. Recovered space varies wildly based on how much you used Evernote — anywhere from 500 MB to 10+ GB. Heavy users with the Legacy app can recover the most because the local SQLite database mirrors the entire account.

Manual vs. Sweep

Evernote is one of the harder Mac uninstalls because:

  1. Most users have data from BOTH the new Electron app and Evernote Legacy
  2. The Legacy app has a sandboxed Container plus Group Containers
  3. The new app has its own Application Support folder and several caches
  4. The Web Clipper is a separate browser concern

Manual works but takes 15+ minutes if you’re thorough. Sweep targets both bundle IDs in one scan, shows you the total recovered space (often 5+ GB), and removes both versions’ data in a single click. The Web Clipper is still a browser-side cleanup either way.

What about ENEX files I exported?

The ENEX files you exported above are yours, not Evernote’s. They’re plain XML files in your Documents folder (or wherever you saved them). They survive the uninstall completely — they’re just files on your disk that happen to contain Evernote’s data format.

Keep them as a backup until you’ve confirmed your migration to the new app worked. Then archive or delete as you prefer.

Reinstalling

If you ever go back to Evernote, install only from evernote.com. Sign in with your existing account, and your notes sync down. There’s no need to import any old data — the cloud has it.

If your account is on the free tier and you have many notebooks, the initial sync can take a while because the new app downloads everything. Be patient on first launch.

That’s Evernote fully removed, with a backup of your notes safely outside the app. Your ~/Library just got a lot lighter.

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