How to Completely Uninstall Visual Studio Code From Your Mac

VS Code is one of the more file-heavy uninstalls on Mac. It’s not the app bundle that’s big — that’s around 350 MB. The trouble is everything VS Code accumulates over time: hundreds of extensions in ~/.vscode/extensions/, gigabytes of TypeScript language server cache, GitHub Copilot session data, workspace-specific state for every folder you’ve ever opened, and a CLI binary symlinked into your shell PATH. On a Mac that’s been a primary dev machine for two years, VS Code’s footprint regularly exceeds 5 GB.

Here’s the full uninstall on macOS Sonoma 14 and Sequoia 15. Same process applies to VS Code Insiders (the daily build) — just swap “Code” for “Code - Insiders” in the paths.

Decide what you want to keep

Before uninstalling, consider:

• Settings sync: if you’ve enabled Settings Sync (signs into GitHub or Microsoft to back up settings, extensions, keybindings), your config is in the cloud. You can fully nuke local state and restore on next install.
• Local-only settings: if you haven’t enabled Settings Sync, back up ~/Library/Application Support/Code/User/settings.json, keybindings.json, and snippets/ if you want to keep them.
• Extensions list: easy to dump for re-import:

  code --list-extensions > ~/Desktop/vscode-extensions.txt
  

  Then on reinstall, restore with:

  cat ~/Desktop/vscode-extensions.txt | xargs -L 1 code --install-extension
  

If you’re uninstalling for good, none of this matters. If you might come back, two minutes of backup saves an hour of setup later.

Quit VS Code

Cmd+Q. In Activity Monitor, search “Code” — you may see the main process plus several language server helpers (TypeScript, Pylance, rust-analyzer, etc.). Force-quit anything left.

If you have integrated terminals open, those will close with the app.

Drag VS Code to the Trash

Open Finder → Applications. Drag “Visual Studio Code” to the Trash. The app bundle is around 350 MB.

If you have VS Code Insiders too, drag that separately. They’re independent apps.

Where VS Code stores data

VS Code’s bundle ID is com.microsoft.VSCode. Storage paths:

App-level data

• ~/Library/Application Support/Code/ — the giant folder. Includes:
  • User/ — settings, keybindings, snippets, tasks, profiles
  • User/workspaceStorage/ — per-workspace state (one folder per workspace ever opened)
  • User/globalStorage/ — extension state, GitHub Copilot data, etc.
  • Cache/ — HTTP cache
  • CachedData/ — V8 bytecode cache
  • CachedExtensions/ — extension marketplace cache
  • logs/ — daily logs
• ~/Library/Caches/com.microsoft.VSCode/ — additional app cache
• ~/Library/Caches/com.microsoft.VSCode.ShipIt/ — Squirrel auto-updater
• ~/Library/Preferences/com.microsoft.VSCode.plist — preferences
• ~/Library/Saved Application State/com.microsoft.VSCode.savedState/ — window state
• ~/Library/Logs/Microsoft VS Code/ — additional logs

Extensions (the other big folder)

• ~/.vscode/extensions/ — installed extensions, one folder each. Often the biggest single folder, especially with language extensions like Pylance (200+ MB), the Java extension pack (1+ GB), and C/C++ tools (500 MB+).
• ~/.vscode/argv.json — runtime arguments
• ~/.vscode-cli/ — CLI cache and tunnel state (if you’ve used code tunnel)

For Insiders, the paths use Code - Insiders and ~/.vscode-insiders/.

Open Finder, Shift+Cmd+G, paste each path, drag what’s there to the Trash.

The CLI binary

VS Code’s “Shell Command: Install ‘code’ command in PATH” feature creates a symlink at /usr/local/bin/code (or /opt/homebrew/bin/code on Apple Silicon Homebrew setups). Check:

which code

If it returns a path, remove the symlink:

sudo rm /usr/local/bin/code
# or for Homebrew:
sudo rm /opt/homebrew/bin/code

For Insiders, the binary is code-insiders at the same path.

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

GitHub Copilot data

If you used Copilot, its data lives inside ~/Library/Application Support/Code/User/globalStorage/github.copilot/ and github.copilot-chat/. Removing the User folder above clears this. Your Copilot subscription is a GitHub account thing, untouched by uninstalling VS Code.

You may also want to revoke VS Code’s GitHub OAuth grant from your GitHub account: github.com/settings/applications. Find “Visual Studio Code” and click Revoke if you’re done with it.

Tunnel and Remote SSH leftovers

If you used VS Code Tunnels (code tunnel) or Remote SSH:

• ~/.vscode-cli/ — tunnel state
• ~/.vscode-server/ (on remote machines, not local) — remote server data
• ~/.vscode/remote- folders — remote workspace state

These are all clean to delete.

Login items

VS Code doesn’t typically add itself to login items, but if you’d configured it to start at login:

1. System Settings → General → Login Items & Extensions.
2. Remove VS Code if listed.

Keychain cleanup

VS Code stores credentials for various services in the Keychain — GitHub OAuth tokens, GitHub Copilot session, Settings Sync token, source control credential helpers, and any VS Code extension that uses the Authentication API.

1. Open Keychain Access.
2. Search “vscode” and “Code.”
3. Review the entries — they’re labeled by service (e.g., “GitHub authentication for VS Code”). Delete what you no longer need.

Be deliberate here — some entries (like git credential helpers) might be used by other tools. If unsure, leave them. They’re harmless if VS Code is gone.

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

URL handler

VS Code registers vscode:// and vscode-insiders:// for opening files from web links (used by GitHub’s “Open in VS Code” buttons, etc.). After uninstall, rebuild Launch Services if these links misbehave:

/System/Library/Frameworks/CoreServices.framework/Versions/A/Frameworks/LaunchServices.framework/Versions/A/Support/lsregister -kill -r -domain local -domain system -domain user

Empty the Trash

Empty the Trash. Recovered space depends entirely on your extension load. A casual user might recover 1 GB. A polyglot dev with C++/Rust/Go/Java/Python extensions and a year of workspace state can recover 5+ GB.

Manual vs. Sweep

VS Code is one of the more rewarding apps to uninstall manually because the storage is concentrated and the gains are real. Two folders matter most: ~/Library/Application Support/Code/ and ~/.vscode/extensions/. Clear those and the rest is incremental.

Sweep targets both, plus the smaller paths (Caches, prefs, ShipIt). It also catches the CLI symlink — which is one of the easier things to forget about manually. If you have both Code and Code Insiders, Sweep handles both bundle IDs in one pass.

Reinstalling cleanly

If you reinstall VS Code, download from code.visualstudio.com. On first launch, sign in to Settings Sync (if you used it before) and your settings, extensions, and keybindings restore automatically. Workspace state (which files were open in which folder) is local-only and won’t restore — you start fresh.

If you’re a Settings Sync user, this clean cycle is one of the satisfying parts of being a VS Code user — periodic reinstalls keep things snappy and recover disk space without losing your setup.

That’s VS Code fully removed. Your dev machine just got a few gigabytes back, and any extension that was secretly slowing your editor’s startup is gone.