How to Properly Uninstall Figma From Your Mac

Figma’s Mac desktop app is mostly just a wrapper around the web app, which means people assume there’s nothing to uninstall — drag to trash and you’re done. That’s mostly true, but Figma also installs a font helper service that keeps running, caches your offline files, and stores design system assets in ~/Library. None of that goes away when you trash the app.

The footprint is small (usually 200MB-2GB) but the lingering font helper can eat CPU and survive the uninstall.

What Figma actually installs

Figma’s bundle ID is com.figma.Desktop. After install you’ll find:

• App bundle at /Applications/Figma.app/
• Preferences at ~/Library/Preferences/com.figma.Desktop.plist
• Application data at ~/Library/Application Support/Figma/
• Caches at ~/Library/Caches/com.figma.Desktop/
• Saved state at ~/Library/Saved Application State/com.figma.Desktop.savedState/
• Logs at ~/Library/Logs/Figma/
• The Figma Agent (font helper) at ~/.figma_agent/ and as a launchctl service

The Figma Agent is the interesting part. It’s a small local service Figma uses to read fonts installed on your Mac so they’re available in the web app. It runs whether or not the desktop app is open.

Step 1: Quit Figma and the Figma Agent

Open Activity Monitor and search “Figma”:

1. Figma — the main app
2. Figma Helper — the renderer process
3. Figma Helper (Renderer) — additional helper processes
4. Figma Helper (GPU) — GPU process
5. figma_agent — the font helper

Quit each one. The agent might restart automatically — that’s fine, we’ll handle it next.

Step 2: Stop the Figma Agent service

The Figma Agent is registered as a launch agent. To stop it from re-spawning:

launchctl unload ~/Library/LaunchAgents/com.figma.agent.launchagent.plist

If the file doesn’t exist (older Figma versions), the command errors harmlessly.

Then delete the agent’s binary and config:

• ~/.figma_agent/ — entire folder
• ~/Library/LaunchAgents/com.figma.agent.launchagent.plist

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Step 3: Drag Figma.app to the Trash

Now move /Applications/Figma.app to the Trash. Don’t empty yet.

Step 4: Remove Figma’s library files

Hit Cmd+Shift+G in Finder and visit:

• ~/Library/Application Support/Figma/ — local design files cache, account session
• ~/Library/Caches/com.figma.Desktop/ — render cache, web content cache
• ~/Library/Caches/com.figma.agent/
• ~/Library/Preferences/com.figma.Desktop.plist
• ~/Library/Preferences/com.figma.agent.plist
• ~/Library/Saved Application State/com.figma.Desktop.savedState/
• ~/Library/Logs/Figma/
• ~/Library/HTTPStorages/com.figma.Desktop/ — cookies and HTTP cache
• ~/Library/WebKit/com.figma.Desktop/ — WebKit content (Figma uses an embedded browser)

The WebKit/ and HTTPStorages/ folders are easy to miss. Figma’s desktop app is a Chromium wrapper, so it stores web cookies and cached content like a browser does. These can grow to a few hundred MB on heavy users.

Step 5: Clear FigJam (if you used it)

FigJam shares Figma’s bundle ID, so its files are already covered above. But if you opened FigJam in the desktop app, there’s a separate state folder:

• ~/Library/Application Support/Figma/FigJam/

Delete it.

Step 6: Empty Trash and verify

Empty the Trash. Open Activity Monitor and check that no Figma or figma_agent processes are running.

If figma_agent is still alive, it means the launchctl unload didn’t take. Run:

launchctl list | grep figma

If anything shows up, take note of the label and run:

launchctl bootout gui/$(id -u)/<label>

Replace <label> with what you saw. This forces an unload.

Why bother with the font agent?

A common question — does the Figma Agent matter if you’ve uninstalled Figma? Yes:

1. It runs on every login, consuming CPU and memory (small but nonzero)
2. It opens a local network port to communicate with the Figma web app
3. It scans your fonts folder periodically
4. It keeps an open file handle to your ~/Library/Fonts/ directory

For most people, the agent uses 50-100MB of RAM and trace CPU. On a Mac that’s already running tight, it’s worth removing.

What about my Figma files?

Your design files live on Figma’s servers, not locally. Uninstalling the desktop app doesn’t affect your account, your projects, or your team’s files. You can keep working in figma.com after uninstalling.

The only thing that’s local is the offline-mode cache, which gets removed when you delete ~/Library/Application Support/Figma/.

Don’t dig through ~/Library yourselfSweep hunts every leftover an uninstaller misses. Free download for Mac →

Common questions

Will I lose my Figma plugins? No. Plugins are server-side, attached to your Figma account. They follow you to any device.

What about Figma’s font preview cache? The agent caches font previews in ~/Library/Caches/com.figma.agent/ and removing that folder is included in step 4. No special handling needed.

Can I keep the Figma Agent without the desktop app? Yes, technically — the agent works with the web version of Figma to surface local fonts. If you’re keeping the agent, only delete the desktop app bundle and skip steps 2 and the agent-specific deletions in step 4. Most people remove both together.

Is there a Figma uninstaller? No. Figma doesn’t ship one. Drag-to-trash + manual cleanup is the official method.

Why automated tools help

Figma’s footprint is small but spread out — the bundle ID, the agent, the WebKit folders, the LaunchAgents. Manual cleanup works in 5-10 minutes. Tools like Sweep find every Figma-prefixed file in one scan, including the LaunchAgent that’s easy to forget. For one app, manual is fine. If you regularly try and uninstall design tools, automated tools start saving real time.

Resetting Figma without full uninstall

If your goal is to fix a broken Figma desktop app — won’t sign in, blank window, can’t open files — try this before uninstalling:

1. Quit Figma and the Figma Agent
2. Delete only ~/Library/Application Support/Figma/Desktop/ (the user data)
3. Delete ~/Library/Caches/com.figma.Desktop/
4. Relaunch Figma — sign in fresh

This fixes 80% of Figma issues without losing your installed app or font agent integration.