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How to Properly Uninstall Notion From Your Mac

Remove Notion from your Mac including the offline cache, preferences, and update files Notion drops in ~/Library.

7 min read

Notion’s desktop app on Mac is essentially a web view of notion.so wrapped in Electron. Most of your data lives in Notion’s cloud — but the desktop app still caches a surprising amount locally. Block previews, attachments, page snapshots for offline access, and a stack of Service Worker storage. On a Mac that’s been signed into a Notion workspace for over a year, that cache regularly hits 1.5–2.5 GB.

If you’re switching to the browser version (it’s basically identical) or just cleaning house, here’s how to uninstall Notion completely on macOS Sonoma 14 and Sequoia 15.

Sign out of every workspace first

This isn’t strictly required, but it’s tidier. Open Notion, click your workspace name (top-left), then “Log out.” If you’re in multiple workspaces, sign out of each one. This invalidates the local OAuth tokens.

Then quit Notion: Cmd+Q, or from the menu bar.

Open Activity Monitor and check for any “Notion” processes still running. Force-quit anything left.

Drag Notion to the Trash

Open Finder → Applications. Drag Notion to the Trash. The app bundle is around 220 MB.

If you also have Notion Calendar (the rebranded Cron app) installed, that’s a separate uninstall — different bundle ID, different data folders. We’re focused on the main Notion app here.

Where Notion stores its data

Notion’s bundle ID is notion.id. (Yes, just notion.id — unusually short for an Electron app.) Here’s the full list of paths:

  • ~/Library/Application Support/Notion/ — main data folder. Contains Cache, Code Cache, GPUCache, IndexedDB, Local Storage, Service Worker storage. Often the biggest folder.
  • ~/Library/Caches/notion.id/ — additional app cache
  • ~/Library/Caches/notion.id.ShipIt/ — Squirrel auto-updater
  • ~/Library/Preferences/notion.id.plist — preferences
  • ~/Library/Saved Application State/notion.id.savedState/ — window state
  • ~/Library/Cookies/notion.id.binarycookies — cookies
  • ~/Library/HTTPStorages/notion.id/ — modern web storage
  • ~/Library/Logs/Notion/ — crash and diagnostic logs

Open Finder, hit Shift+Cmd+G, paste each path, and clear what’s there.

Tip: If you've configured offline access for specific pages or workspaces, those copies live in ~/Library/Application Support/Notion/IndexedDB/. Once you delete this folder, you'll need to re-toggle offline access if you reinstall.

Login items and background

Notion adds itself to login items by default.

  1. System Settings → General → Login Items & Extensions.
  2. Look for Notion under “Open at Login” — click minus.
  3. Check “Allow in the Background” — toggle off if listed.

If Notion’s not listed in either, it’s already clean.

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Keychain cleanup

Notion stores its session token and Electron safe storage encryption key in the Keychain.

  1. Open Keychain Access.
  2. Search “Notion.”
  3. Delete the matching entries — typically “Notion Safe Storage” plus a couple of cookie entries.

If you reinstall later, Notion creates fresh entries on first sign-in.

URL handler registration

This is the one that catches people. Notion registers itself as the handler for notion:// URLs — the deep links that open specific pages directly in the app. Even after you uninstall, macOS may still associate notion:// with the old (deleted) app, and clicking a Notion deep link from email or Slack will throw an error.

To fix:

  1. Run this in Terminal to clear the handler registration: 
    /System/Library/Frameworks/CoreServices.framework/Versions/A/Frameworks/LaunchServices.framework/Versions/A/Support/lsregister -kill -r -domain local -domain system -domain user
  2. This rebuilds the Launch Services database — takes about 30 seconds. After it finishes, notion:// URLs will fall back to opening in your default browser.

If you don’t use notion:// deep links, you can skip this. Most people never notice.

What about the Notion Web Clipper?

The Web Clipper is a separate browser extension, not part of the desktop app. Uninstalling the Mac app doesn’t remove it.

  • Safari: Safari → Settings → Extensions → uncheck Notion Web Clipper, then Uninstall.
  • Chrome/Brave/Arc: chrome://extensions → find Notion Web Clipper → Remove.

The Web Clipper has its own storage inside the browser’s extension data folder, separate from the Mac app’s data.

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Empty the Trash

Empty the Trash. The space recovered is usually 1–2.5 GB depending on how much offline content and how many embedded files you had.

If you see “files in use,” check Activity Monitor — Notion sometimes leaves a helper running for a minute after the main app quits.

Manual vs. Sweep

Notion is straightforward as Electron uninstalls go — most data lives in ~/Library/Application Support/Notion/ and clearing that folder gets you 90% of the way. The other 10% is the Caches folder, the preferences plist, and the cookies file. Five paths, all easy to find.

That said, doing this for every Electron app you ever install gets old fast. Sweep’s uninstaller scans for everything matching notion.id, shows the size total, and removes it all in one click. The manual route works fine for one-off cleanups; Sweep makes more sense if you regularly try out new apps.

Will I lose my notes?

No. Notion stores your data in the cloud. Pages, databases, blocks, comments, attachments — all server-side. The desktop app is a thin client, and uninstalling it doesn’t touch any of your actual content.

If you go to notion.so in any browser after uninstalling, everything is exactly where you left it. Sign in, and you’re back.

The only data that’s truly local is:

  • Files you’ve manually downloaded from Notion to your Downloads folder (those are yours, not in the app’s cache)
  • Pages you’d toggled “Available offline” on, but those are also in the cloud — the local copy is just a cache
  • Drafts you wrote while offline that haven’t synced yet (rare)

If you’re worried about that last category, open Notion before uninstalling, make sure you’re online, and wait 60 seconds for any pending sync to finish. The “Synced” indicator at the top of each page should be solid.

Reinstalling later

If you ever want Notion back, download from notion.so/desktop. The fresh install creates a new Application Support folder, and on first login you’ll be back to your workspaces with no data loss. None of the old cache or preferences are needed for a clean reinstall — in fact, a fresh start often fixes performance issues that built up over time.

That’s Notion fully removed. Your ~/Library is one bundle ID smaller, your boot is a touch faster, and your notes are exactly where they always were: in the cloud.

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