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How to Uninstall HandBrake From Your Mac

HandBrake's encoding presets and queue history persist after uninstall. Here's how to remove every HandBrake file from your Mac cleanly.

6 min read

HandBrake is the de facto video transcoding tool for Mac users. It’s small (~150MB) and — like most open-source apps — has a clean install. But its preferences, custom presets, and queue history live in the usual ~/Library paths, and a heavy HandBrake user can have hundreds of saved presets and a multi-MB queue history that persists long after the app is gone.

The cleanup is quick. Here it is.

What HandBrake installs

Bundle ID: fr.handbrake.HandBrake. Files:

  • App at /Applications/HandBrake.app/
  • Application support at ~/Library/Application Support/HandBrake/
  • Caches at ~/Library/Caches/fr.handbrake.HandBrake/
  • Preferences at ~/Library/Preferences/fr.handbrake.HandBrake.plist
  • Saved state at ~/Library/Saved Application State/fr.handbrake.HandBrake.savedState/

HandBrake doesn’t install daemons, helpers, or launch agents. The CLI version (HandBrakeCLI) installs separately if you got it.

Step 1: Quit HandBrake

If a transcoding queue is running, let it finish or pause it first. HandBrake doesn’t quit cleanly mid-encode — you’ll lose the partial output.

  1. HandBrake → Pause Queue if anything is encoding
  2. Cmd+Q to quit

In Activity Monitor, verify no HandBrake processes are running.

Step 2: Drag HandBrake.app to the Trash

Move /Applications/HandBrake.app/ to the Trash.

If you also installed HandBrakeCLI via Homebrew:

brew uninstall handbrake

That removes the CLI version separately.

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

Step 3: Remove HandBrake’s library files

Open Finder, hit Cmd+Shift+G, and visit each path:

  • ~/Library/Application Support/HandBrake/ — custom presets, queue history, activity log
  • ~/Library/Caches/fr.handbrake.HandBrake/
  • ~/Library/Preferences/fr.handbrake.HandBrake.plist — app preferences
  • ~/Library/Saved Application State/fr.handbrake.HandBrake.savedState/
  • ~/Library/Logs/HandBrake/ — encoding logs (only present if logging was enabled)

The Application Support folder contains:

  1. UserPresets.json — all your custom presets
  2. Queue.hbq — the encoding queue
  3. EncodeLogs/ — detailed logs from past encodes
  4. ScanLogs/ — logs from disc scanning

If you want to keep your custom presets for a future install, back up UserPresets.json first. There’s no built-in export feature — copying the file to an external drive is the only way to preserve presets across uninstalls.

Tip: HandBrake's UserPresets.json is plain JSON and portable. You can copy it between Macs, share it with colleagues, or back it up with version control. If you've spent hours dialing in custom encoding settings, this single file is worth saving before any uninstall.

Step 4: Encoding logs — privacy consideration

HandBrake’s encode logs include source file paths and metadata. If you’re transferring your Mac or concerned about privacy:

  • ~/Library/Application Support/HandBrake/EncodeLogs/

Step 3 already covers this folder.

The logs reveal what files you’ve encoded. If you ripped DVDs or Blu-rays via MakeMKV and then encoded with HandBrake, the logs name those files. Step 3 deletes them all.

Step 5: Empty Trash

No reboot needed. HandBrake doesn’t install background services. Once the Trash is empty, HandBrake is gone.

Realistic space recovery

HandBrake uninstall reclaims:

  1. 150MB from the app bundle
  2. 10-50MB from application support (queue history, logs, presets)
  3. 5-20MB from caches and preferences

Total: usually 200-300MB. Heavy users with thousands of encode logs might see 500MB+.

This isn’t a “free up huge amounts of space” uninstall. HandBrake is small.

What about HandBrakeCLI?

If you installed the command-line version separately:

  • Via Homebrew: brew uninstall handbrake
  • Manual install: /usr/local/bin/HandBrakeCLI — delete with sudo rm /usr/local/bin/HandBrakeCLI

The CLI shares no preferences with the GUI app. Different tool, separate uninstall.

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

What about libdvdcss?

If you installed libdvdcss to enable HandBrake to read encrypted DVDs, that library lives at:

  • /usr/local/lib/libdvdcss.2.dylib (Intel Macs)
  • /opt/homebrew/lib/libdvdcss.2.dylib (Apple Silicon Macs via Homebrew)

Remove via Homebrew:

brew uninstall libdvdcss

Or manually delete the dylib file with sudo rm.

libdvdcss is HandBrake-related but technically independent. It’s a shared library used by other DVD tools too — only remove if you’re sure no other tools depend on it.

Common questions

Will my encoded videos be deleted? No. HandBrake outputs to a folder you specify on each encode. Those files are independent of the app and remain wherever you saved them.

Can I reinstall HandBrake later? Anytime. Download from handbrake.fr. No license, no account.

What about Don Melton’s video transcoding scripts? If you used Don Melton’s transcode-video or other_video_transcoding scripts, those install via Homebrew and use a separate Ruby gem. They’re independent of HandBrake.app and need separate uninstall:

gem uninstall video_transcoding

Does HandBrake remember my encoded files? HandBrake keeps a queue history showing recent encodes (source, output, settings). It doesn’t store the files themselves — just metadata. Step 3’s cleanup removes that history.

Manual versus automated

HandBrake is small and clean. Manual cleanup takes 2-3 minutes if you know the paths. Sweep finds the same files in one scan, but the time savings on a single small app is minimal.

Where automated tools start helping is when you’re cleaning up a stack of media tools at once — VLC, HandBrake, IINA, MakeMKV, FFmpeg. Each has its own bundle ID and its own preferences folder. Manual cleanup of each becomes tedious. One scan finds them all.

Resetting HandBrake without uninstalling

If HandBrake is acting up — won’t open files, queue won’t process, presets corrupted:

  1. Quit HandBrake
  2. Delete ~/Library/Preferences/fr.handbrake.HandBrake.plist
  3. Delete ~/Library/Application Support/HandBrake/Queue.hbq (clears the queue)
  4. Relaunch

This rebuilds preferences and clears the queue without touching your custom presets in UserPresets.json. For preset corruption specifically, also delete UserPresets.json — HandBrake regenerates default presets on next launch.

Why HandBrake is worth this small effort

If you’re doing a Mac cleanup and HandBrake is one of dozens of apps you’re removing, the encode logs might not seem worth attention. But they include full source file paths — so the logs reveal exactly what you’ve ripped and encoded over the years. For privacy-conscious users selling or donating a Mac, that’s a legitimate reason to clean up properly rather than just trashing the app.

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