How to Completely Uninstall OBS Studio From Your Mac

OBS Studio is open source, free, and widely used by streamers and screen recorders on Mac. It’s also one of the messier uninstalls in the open-source world — not because OBS scatters files everywhere, but because plugins and scene collections accumulate over years of use, and OBS doesn’t include an uninstaller. Drag-to-trash leaves your full plugin stack and every scene collection you’ve ever made.

Here’s the proper removal procedure.

What OBS Studio installs

Bundle ID: com.obsproject.obs-studio. Files:

• App at /Applications/OBS.app/
• Application support at ~/Library/Application Support/obs-studio/
• Caches at ~/Library/Caches/com.obsproject.obs-studio/
• Preferences at ~/Library/Preferences/com.obsproject.obs-studio.plist
• Saved state at ~/Library/Saved Application State/com.obsproject.obs-studio.savedState/
• Plugins (third-party) inside the app bundle and in the user library

OBS doesn’t install daemons or launch agents. The app and its data are self-contained.

Step 1: Quit OBS

If you’re streaming or recording, stop the stream/recording first. Force-quitting OBS mid-stream loses the buffer.

In Activity Monitor, search “OBS” and verify nothing’s lingering.

Step 2: Drag OBS.app to the Trash

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

If you installed OBS via Homebrew Cask:

brew uninstall --cask obs

That handles the app removal but doesn’t touch user data. Manual cleanup of ~/Library is still required.

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

Step 3: Back up scene collections and profiles (optional)

Before deleting anything, if you may want to reinstall OBS later or use scenes on another machine, back these up:

• ~/Library/Application Support/obs-studio/basic/scenes/ — scene collection JSON files
• ~/Library/Application Support/obs-studio/basic/profiles/ — encoding profile configs
• ~/Library/Application Support/obs-studio/global.ini — global OBS settings

Copy these to an external drive. They’re small (KB to a few MB) and portable across Macs.

Step 4: Remove OBS user data

In Finder, hit Cmd+Shift+G and visit each:

• ~/Library/Application Support/obs-studio/ — scenes, profiles, plugin configs, recordings settings
• ~/Library/Caches/com.obsproject.obs-studio/
• ~/Library/Preferences/com.obsproject.obs-studio.plist
• ~/Library/Saved Application State/com.obsproject.obs-studio.savedState/
• ~/Library/Logs/OBS/ (if logging was enabled)

The Application Support folder holds:

1. basic/ — your default scene collection and profile
2. plugin_config/ — settings for third-party plugins
3. crashes/ — crash dumps from failed sessions
4. logs/ — session logs

Delete the entire folder unless you want to preserve specific subfolders for future use.

Step 5: Remove third-party plugins

This is where OBS uninstalls get messy. Plugins install in two places:

• Inside the app bundle: /Applications/OBS.app/Contents/PlugIns/ — these go with the app when you delete it
• In the user library: ~/Library/Application Support/obs-studio/plugins/

The user-level plugin folder is included in step 4’s cleanup. But some plugins also install global components:

• StreamFX: installs nothing extra outside ~/Library/Application Support/obs-studio/
• OBS Virtual Camera: installs /Library/CoreMediaIO/Plug-Ins/DAL/obs-mac-virtualcam.plugin/ — this is system-wide
• NDI plugin: requires the NewTek NDI Runtime at /Library/Application Support/NewTek/NDI/
• Move Transitions, Source Record, Advanced Scene Switcher: bundled with OBS, no system-wide files

For OBS Virtual Camera, if you want to fully remove it:

• /Library/CoreMediaIO/Plug-Ins/DAL/obs-mac-virtualcam.plugin/

This requires admin password. The Virtual Camera shows up in other apps (Zoom, Discord) as an available video source — removing it disables that.

Step 6: NDI Runtime (if installed)

If you used the NDI plugin for OBS, the NewTek NDI Runtime is independent of OBS:

• /Library/Application Support/NewTek/NDI/
• /Library/Frameworks/Processing.NDI.dylib

Only delete these if no other NDI-based apps use them (NDI Tools, NDI Bridge, vMix, etc.).

Step 7: Recordings and stream output files

OBS records to a folder you specify (usually ~/Movies/ or ~/Videos/). Uninstalling OBS doesn’t touch those files. Check your output settings before uninstalling if you want to verify the location:

• The path was set in Settings → Output → Recording when OBS was running
• If you no longer have OBS running, check the file system for .mkv or .mp4 files in your recording folder

These can be many GB on streamers’ machines. Independent of OBS — they’re just video files.

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

Step 8: Empty Trash

No reboot needed unless you removed the Virtual Camera plugin. The Virtual Camera registers a CoreMediaIO plugin that’s loaded by macOS at boot — a reboot fully releases it.

Realistic space recovery

OBS uninstall reclaims:

1. 200-300MB from the app bundle
2. 50-500MB from user data (scene collections, plugin configs)
3. 10-50MB from caches
4. 0-100MB from third-party plugins

Total: 300MB-1GB on most machines. Heavy users with elaborate scene libraries and many plugins might hit 2GB.

The big space hog isn’t OBS itself — it’s the recordings OBS produced, which live wherever you set the output folder. Those can be 50-500GB on streamers’ machines and aren’t touched by uninstalling OBS.

Common questions

Will my recordings be deleted? No. Recordings are saved to a folder you specified (Movies, Desktop, external drive). Uninstalling OBS doesn’t touch them.

What if I want to keep my scene collection for a future install? Back up ~/Library/Application Support/obs-studio/basic/ before deleting. When you reinstall OBS, drop it back into the same path.

Does this remove the Virtual Camera from Zoom/Discord? Only if you delete the plugin in step 5 (/Library/CoreMediaIO/Plug-Ins/DAL/obs-mac-virtualcam.plugin/). Without that step, Zoom and Discord will still show “OBS Virtual Camera” as an option but it won’t work because OBS isn’t running.

What about OBS Studio Beta or OBS Studio Nightly? Different bundle IDs:

1. Stable: com.obsproject.obs-studio
2. Beta: com.obsproject.obs-studio-beta
3. Nightly: com.obsproject.obs-studio-nightly

If you’ve used multiple variants, clean up each bundle ID’s folder in ~/Library/Application Support/.

Manual versus automated

OBS is moderate complexity to uninstall manually. The app itself is straightforward but plugins introduce variables — Virtual Camera, NDI Runtime, plugin-specific configs. Forgetting one plugin folder means files persist.

Sweep finds OBS-prefixed bundles plus the system-level Virtual Camera plugin in one scan. For one uninstall, manual takes 5-10 minutes. For routine maintenance or troubleshooting plugin issues, automation is faster.

Resetting OBS without uninstalling

If OBS is broken — won’t open, scenes won’t load, plugins crashing:

1. Quit OBS
2. Move ~/Library/Application Support/obs-studio/ to a backup location (don’t delete yet)
3. Relaunch OBS — it creates a fresh config
4. If it works, you can copy specific scene files back from the backup
5. If it doesn’t work, the issue is the app itself or system permissions (camera, microphone, screen recording)

For permission issues specifically:

• System Settings → Privacy & Security → Screen Recording — verify OBS is checked
• System Settings → Privacy & Security → Camera and Microphone — verify access

Permission resets often fix “OBS sees no sources” issues without any reinstall.

Why automation matters more here than for VLC

OBS plugins drop files in different places depending on the plugin author. Some put files in ~/Library/Application Support/obs-studio/, some in /Library/, some in /usr/local/. There’s no enforced convention. Manual cleanup means knowing every plugin you ever installed.

Sweep flags every OBS-related file by bundle ID and by author signature, catching plugins that name themselves nonstandardly. For active streamers running 5+ plugins, this saves real time over manual hunting.