How to Completely Uninstall Sketch From Your Mac

Sketch is a Mac-only design app, so its developers know macOS conventions and the install footprint is reasonable — but “reasonable” still means a dozen folders left behind after drag-to-trash. If you’ve used Sketch for any length of time, you’ve accumulated plugins, custom libraries, document version history, and a cloud sync folder.

Here’s the full removal procedure for Sketch and everything Sketch installs.

Sketch’s footprint on macOS

Sketch’s bundle ID is com.bohemiancoding.sketch3. The full footprint:

• App at /Applications/Sketch.app/
• Preferences at ~/Library/Preferences/com.bohemiancoding.sketch3.plist
• Application support at ~/Library/Application Support/com.bohemiancoding.sketch3/
• Caches at ~/Library/Caches/com.bohemiancoding.sketch3/
• Saved state at ~/Library/Saved Application State/com.bohemiancoding.sketch3.savedState/
• Cloud documents at ~/Library/Containers/com.bohemiancoding.SketchMirror/ (if Sketch Mirror was used)
• Backup folder at ~/Library/Application Support/Sketch/Backups/ (auto-saves)
• Document version history (per-file) in macOS’s standard versions database
• Plugins at ~/Library/Application Support/com.bohemiancoding.sketch3/Plugins/

If you used Sketch Cloud (Workspace), there’s also account session data and synced files.

Step 1: Quit Sketch and Sketch Mirror

In Activity Monitor, search “Sketch”:

1. Sketch — the main app
2. Sketch Mirror — the iOS preview helper, if installed
3. Sketch Helper — internal renderer
4. CloudKit — Sketch Workspace sync (this is shared with macOS, don’t quit unless you’re sure)

Quit Sketch and Sketch Mirror. Leave CloudKit alone.

Step 2: Sign out of Sketch Workspace

If you’ve been syncing to Sketch Cloud, sign out before uninstalling. This deregisters your local session and prevents the cloud client from trying to sync after you’ve removed the app:

1. In Sketch, go to Sketch → Workspaces
2. Sign out of any workspaces

Skip this if you never used Sketch Cloud or you’re not signed in.

Step 3: Drag Sketch.app to the Trash

Move /Applications/Sketch.app to the Trash. If you have Sketch Mirror installed at /Applications/Sketch Mirror.app/, move that too.

Don’t empty the Trash yet — wait until after the manual cleanup.

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Step 4: Remove leftover library files

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

• ~/Library/Application Support/com.bohemiancoding.sketch3/ — plugins, libraries, custom templates, color palettes
• ~/Library/Application Support/Sketch/ — older versions used this path
• ~/Library/Caches/com.bohemiancoding.sketch3/
• ~/Library/Caches/com.bohemiancoding.SketchMirror/
• ~/Library/Preferences/com.bohemiancoding.sketch3.plist
• ~/Library/Preferences/com.bohemiancoding.SketchMirror.plist
• ~/Library/Saved Application State/com.bohemiancoding.sketch3.savedState/
• ~/Library/Saved Application State/com.bohemiancoding.SketchMirror.savedState/
• ~/Library/HTTPStorages/com.bohemiancoding.sketch3/
• ~/Library/Logs/Sketch/

The Application Support folder is the largest leftover — it contains every plugin, every custom library, and every shared style you’ve ever set up. Plugins alone can be hundreds of MB on a heavy user.

Step 5: Sketch Mirror cleanup

If you used Sketch Mirror to preview designs on iOS:

• ~/Library/Containers/com.bohemiancoding.SketchMirror/ — sandboxed app data
• ~/Library/Group Containers/com.bohemiancoding.sketch3/ — shared with main app

Delete both.

Step 6: Cloud document cache

If you used Sketch Cloud heavily, downloaded cloud documents are cached in:

• ~/Library/Application Support/com.bohemiancoding.sketch3/Cloud Documents/

This can hit a few GB on heavy users. The cloud copies remain on Sketch’s servers — local cache deletion just frees disk space.

Step 7: Plugins (the big one)

Sketch’s plugin ecosystem is huge — Anima, Sketch Runner, Stark, Looper, Magic Mirror, Chart, etc. They live at:

• ~/Library/Application Support/com.bohemiancoding.sketch3/Plugins/

Each plugin is a .sketchplugin bundle. Deleting the parent folder removes them all in one shot.

If any plugin had its own helper app or service (rare), it’d be in /Applications/ separately. Check by searching for the plugin name in Spotlight before assuming the bundle removal got everything.

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Step 8: Document version history

macOS keeps a per-document version history database. For Sketch documents specifically:

• ~/Library/Containers/com.bohemiancoding.sketch3.SketchVersionService/

This holds the version history Sketch shows when you pick File → Revert To. With Sketch uninstalled, the history is unreachable anyway. Delete this folder.

Step 9: Empty Trash

You’re done. Empty the Trash to actually free the space.

A reboot isn’t strictly necessary — Sketch doesn’t install daemons or launch agents like Adobe apps do — but it’s good hygiene to verify nothing’s lingering.

What gets reclaimed

A typical Sketch uninstall reclaims:

1. 200-500MB from the app bundle
2. 100MB-2GB from plugins
3. 200MB-3GB from cloud document cache
4. 50-200MB from preferences and caches
5. 100MB-1GB from version history

Total: usually 1-6GB. Heavy plugin users with active Sketch Cloud usage can push it past 10GB.

What about my .sketch files?

Your Sketch documents (.sketch files) live wherever you saved them — Documents, Desktop, iCloud Drive, etc. Uninstalling Sketch doesn’t touch them. They become unopenable without Sketch installed (or without converting them to another format), but the files persist.

If you may want to reinstall later, leave your .sketch files alone. If you’re done with Sketch entirely, you can either keep them as-is or convert them. Tools like Figma’s Sketch importer or pure-export plugins can save them as .fig or .svg before you remove Sketch.

Common questions

Does this remove my Sketch license? Sketch’s license is tied to your Sketch account, not to the app on your Mac. Uninstalling doesn’t deactivate the license. You can sign in on a new Mac and keep using it.

What if I want to keep my plugins for a future reinstall? Back up ~/Library/Application Support/com.bohemiancoding.sketch3/Plugins/ to an external drive. When you reinstall Sketch, drop the folder back into place.

Can I just delete the app and skip all the Library cleanup? Yes, technically — the leftover files don’t actively do anything once the app is gone. But they take up disk space. On a 256GB MacBook, those leftover GBs matter.

Manual versus automated

Sketch is one of the cleaner Mac apps to uninstall — Bohemian Coding follows macOS conventions. Manual cleanup takes 5 minutes if you know the paths.

Where automated tools earn their keep is finding plugins you forgot about. Heavy Sketch users often have plugins from companies that no longer exist, with stale support files in ~/Library from versions you uninstalled years ago. Sweep’s app uninstaller flags every Sketch-related file by bundle ID prefix, including those forgotten plugins. For one removal, manual works fine.

Resetting Sketch without uninstalling

If you’re trying to fix a broken Sketch (won’t open, plugins crashing) rather than remove it permanently:

1. Quit Sketch
2. Delete ~/Library/Preferences/com.bohemiancoding.sketch3.plist
3. Delete ~/Library/Caches/com.bohemiancoding.sketch3/
4. Relaunch Sketch

This rebuilds preferences and caches without touching plugins or libraries. Fixes most “Sketch won’t launch” issues.