Printer software is some of the stickiest junk a Mac can accumulate. You plug in one HP or Canon once, install the full driver suite, and years later the printer is long gone but the software quietly occupies gigabytes of space across half a dozen hidden folders. If you want to remove printer drivers on Mac completely — not just drag the app to the Trash — you need to know exactly where each vendor hides its files. This guide covers HP, Canon, Epson, and Brother on macOS Sequoia and Tahoe (Apple Silicon and Intel).
Why Printer Drivers Leave So Much Behind
macOS ships with a built-in printer driver framework (CUPS, the Common Unix Printing System). When you install HP Smart, Canon IJ, Epson Software Updater, or the Brother installer package, they layer their own binaries, kernel extensions, background agents, receipt files, and caches on top of CUPS. The result is a sprawl across /Library/, ~/Library/, and /private/var/ that Finder's default "move to Trash" never touches.
On top of that, most vendor installers drop a LaunchDaemon or LaunchAgent — a small background process that checks for firmware updates or keeps a cloud-print connection alive. These run even when you never print, quietly consuming RAM and occasionally waking the Mac from sleep.
How Much Space Do Printer Drivers Actually Use?
The answer varies by vendor and how many models you have installed. The table below reflects typical installs of a single full driver suite on macOS Sequoia.
| Vendor | Typical Driver Suite Size | Background Agent | Uninstaller Included? |
|---|---|---|---|
| HP (HP Smart + full suite) | 800 MB – 1.5 GB | Yes (HPEventHandler) |
Partial (misses Library leftovers) |
| Canon (IJ Printer Driver) | 300 – 700 MB | Yes (Canon IJ Network Tool) |
Yes, but incomplete |
| Epson (Epson Software Updater) | 400 – 900 MB | Yes (EpsonSoftwareUpdater) |
No dedicated uninstaller |
| Brother (ControlCenter4 / iPrint) | 200 – 500 MB | Yes (BrStatusMonitor) |
Yes, via separate PKG |
Before You Start: Remove the Printer from System Settings
Always remove the printer queue first. If you delete driver files while a printer queue is still registered, macOS may re-fetch drivers automatically or show errors in System Settings.
- Open System Settings → Printers & Scanners.
- Select the printer you want to remove.
- Click the minus (−) button and confirm deletion.
- Repeat for every queue tied to the vendor you are removing.
How to Remove Printer Drivers on Mac Step by Step
The process below works for all four major vendors. Substitute the vendor-specific paths in the sections that follow.
- Quit all vendor apps. Check the menu bar for any printer status icons and quit them. Open Activity Monitor (
Applications → Utilities → Activity Monitor) and force-quit any process whose name contains the vendor name. - Run the vendor uninstaller if one exists. Look inside
/Applicationsfor a folder named after the vendor. Canon and Brother often ship a dedicated Uninstaller app inside that folder. HP Smart can be removed via the App Store or the HP Uninstaller app at/Applications/HP/HP Uninstaller.app. - Delete the main application bundle. Drag the vendor app (e.g.,
HP Smart.app,Canon IJ Printer Utility.app) to the Trash. - Remove leftover files manually using the paths listed in the vendor sections below.
- Flush the CUPS printer driver cache. Open Terminal and run:
sudo rm -rf /Library/Caches/com.apple.printing.ppd-cache
This forces CUPS to rebuild its driver index without the removed PPDs. - Empty the Trash and restart the Mac to clear any held kernel extensions or daemons from memory.
HP Driver Leftovers: Where to Look
HP installs one of the largest footprints of any printer vendor. After running the HP Uninstaller, check and delete these paths:
/Library/Printers/hp/— PPD files and raster filters/Library/Application Support/HP/— shared libraries and plug-ins/Library/LaunchDaemons/com.hp.*.plist— background daemons/Library/LaunchAgents/com.hp.*.plist— per-user agents~/Library/Application Support/HP/— user-specific data~/Library/Preferences/com.hp.*.plist— preference files~/Library/Caches/com.hp.*/— cached data/Library/Receipts/— look for any.bomor.plistfiles prefixed withcom.hp
To list every HP-related file in one command, run:
sudo find /Library ~/Library -iname "*hp*" -o -iname "*hewlett*" 2>/dev/null
Review the output before deleting — some files may belong to other software that happens to share a naming convention.
Canon, Epson, and Brother: Key Paths
Canon
/Library/Printers/Canon//Library/Application Support/Canon//Library/LaunchAgents/jp.co.canon.*.plist~/Library/Application Support/Canon/~/Library/Preferences/jp.co.canon.*.plist
Epson
Epson does not include a dedicated uninstaller. You must remove files manually:
/Library/Printers/EPSON//Library/Application Support/Epson//Library/LaunchAgents/com.epson.*.plist/Library/LaunchDaemons/com.epson.*.plist~/Library/Application Support/Epson Software/~/Library/Preferences/com.epson.*.plist
Brother
/Library/Printers/Brother//Library/Application Support/Brother//Library/LaunchDaemons/com.brother.*.plist~/Library/Application Support/Brother/~/Library/Preferences/com.brother.*.plist
Brother's uninstaller is a separate download from their support site. Search for your model and look for a file called Brother Uninstaller.pkg or DeleteBrotherDriver.app.
Using Terminal to Confirm Nothing Is Left
Once you have removed files manually, a quick Terminal sweep confirms the cleanup is thorough. Replace VENDOR with hp, canon, epson, or brother as needed:
find /Library ~/Library /private/var/db -iname "*VENDOR*" 2>/dev/null | grep -v ".Trash"
Any results that are not inside the Trash are remaining files worth reviewing. Kernel extension remnants sometimes appear under /Library/Extensions/ as .kext bundles — remove these too if present, as they can cause System Settings warnings on Apple Silicon Macs running macOS Sequoia or later.
If you find it tedious to hunt across a dozen hidden folders, a tool like Crumb can audit all of these locations at once and show what is safe to remove before anything is deleted — useful when you have drivers from several vendors piled up over the years. For a broader look at what else might be inflating your storage, this guide on what is taking up space on your Mac covers the full picture.
After Removal: Reinstalling a Printer Driver If You Need It Back
macOS Sequoia and Tahoe can download the correct driver automatically when you add a printer via System Settings → Printers & Scanners → Add Printer. For most modern AirPrint-compatible printers, no third-party driver is needed at all — the built-in CUPS driver handles printing and scanning reliably. Only install a vendor driver suite if you need specific features like borderless photo printing or proprietary ink-level monitoring.
For a deeper dive into how to completely uninstall apps on Mac — including other software that leaves behind hidden support files — that guide walks through the same Library-folder approach for virtually any application.