How to Uninstall Steam on Mac and Remove Game Files & Caches (2026)

Steam is one of the heaviest applications you can install on a Mac. The client itself is modest, but the steamapps folder — packed with game binaries, shader caches, and workshop content — can quietly consume tens or hundreds of gigabytes. If you want to uninstall Steam on Mac properly, dragging the app to the Trash leaves most of that data behind. This guide walks through the complete removal process, from the app itself to every leftover folder Steam scatters across your drive.

Why Steam Takes So Much Space

Before you delete anything, it helps to understand what Steam actually writes to disk:

• steamapps/ — the main game library. Each installed game lives here as a .acf manifest plus its actual content folder. This directory is almost always the largest single culprit.
• Shader pre-cache — compiled Metal/Vulkan shaders stored in ~/Library/Application Support/Steam/shadercache/. These regenerate automatically, so they are safe to delete.
• Download cache — partially downloaded game chunks in ~/Library/Application Support/Steam/depotcache/.
• Logs and crash dumps — small individually, but they accumulate in ~/Library/Logs/Steam/ and ~/Library/Application Support/Steam/dumps/.
• User data — save games and cloud sync copies in ~/Library/Application Support/Steam/userdata/. This is the one folder you may want to keep a backup of before removing Steam entirely.

Step 1: Back Up Save Games (Optional but Recommended)

Steam Cloud syncs most save games automatically, but not every game opts in. Before you remove anything permanent, copy the userdata folder somewhere safe:

cp -R ~/Library/Application\ Support/Steam/userdata ~/Desktop/Steam_userdata_backup

Cleaning is permanent. If a game does not use Steam Cloud and you delete userdata, that progress is gone.

Step 2: Uninstall Individual Games First (Optional)

If you only want to remove specific games rather than Steam itself, do it from within the client while it is still installed. This is the cleanest path because Steam removes the game files and updates its own manifests correctly.

1. Open Steam and go to Library.
2. Right-click the game and choose Manage → Uninstall.
3. Confirm the removal. Steam deletes the content folder inside steamapps but leaves the .acf manifest file. Remove stray manifests manually if you want a fully clean library folder.

Repeat for every game you no longer want, then proceed to remove Steam itself.

Step 3: Quit Steam Completely

Steam runs a background helper process even when the main window is closed. Before deleting any files, quit it fully:

1. In the menu bar, click Steam → Quit Steam.
2. Check Activity Monitor (or run the command below) to confirm no Steam processes remain:

pgrep -il steam

If any processes appear, kill them:

pkill -9 -i steam

Step 4: Delete the Steam Application

Drag /Applications/Steam.app to the Trash, or use Terminal:

sudo rm -rf /Applications/Steam.app

This removes the client binary only. All game data, caches, and logs remain untouched.

Step 5: Remove Steam's Library and Support Files

These are the folders that actually hold the bulk of the disk usage. Remove them one by one so you can decide what to keep.

The steamapps Folder (Largest — Handle With Care)

By default the game library is stored here:

~/Library/Application Support/Steam/steamapps

If you added extra library folders via Steam's settings, check those locations too — common choices are an external drive or a second internal volume. To delete the default steamapps folder:

rm -rf ~/Library/Application\ Support/Steam/steamapps

This is permanent and unrecoverable without re-downloading games.

Shader Cache

rm -rf ~/Library/Application\ Support/Steam/shadercache

Safe to delete — Steam regenerates shaders on next launch (game loading times may be slightly higher the first time).

Download Cache

rm -rf ~/Library/Application\ Support/Steam/depotcache

Safe to delete. Any interrupted downloads will restart from the beginning if you reinstall Steam later.

The Rest of the Support Folder

Once you have handled userdata and steamapps, remove the entire Steam support directory:

rm -rf ~/Library/Application\ Support/Steam

Logs

rm -rf ~/Library/Logs/Steam

Caches

rm -rf ~/Library/Caches/com.valvesoftware.steam

Preferences and Launch Agents

rm ~/Library/Preferences/com.valvesoftware.steam.plist
rm ~/Library/LaunchAgents/com.valvesoftware.steamclean.plist

The LaunchAgent file may not exist on all installations; that is fine if the command returns an error.

Doing It Visually With Crumb

If you prefer not to run Terminal commands, Crumb handles this well. Open the Uninstall tab, find Steam in the app list, and Crumb will show you the application alongside its detected leftover files — including the steamapps folder, caches, and support data — before you remove anything. You can review and deselect individual items (for example, keeping userdata while removing shadercache) and then remove the rest in one step. The Visualize tab also lets you see exactly how much of your disk steamapps occupies relative to everything else, which is useful if you are trying to decide which games to keep.

If you want to try it, you can download Crumb and use the Uninstall feature without a license.

What Is Safe to Delete vs. What to Keep

Checking for Custom Library Locations

Steam allows multiple library folders, often pointed at an external SSD or a second partition. These are not deleted by the steps above. To find them, look at the Steam library manager configuration before you remove the client, or check whether large steamapps folders exist on other volumes:

find /Volumes -maxdepth 3 -name "steamapps" -type d 2>/dev/null

Remove any results that correspond to libraries you no longer want.

Verifying the Removal

After deleting everything, confirm no Steam files remain in the common locations:

ls ~/Library/Application\ Support/ | grep -i steam
ls ~/Library/Caches/ | grep -i steam
ls ~/Library/Logs/ | grep -i steam

All three commands should return empty output.

Conclusion

A complete Steam uninstall on macOS involves more than moving the app to the Trash. The steamapps folder alone can represent the bulk of your used disk space, and shader caches, logs, and support data linger in several Library subdirectories. Working through the steps above — or using a tool like Crumb's Uninstall tab to review leftovers visually — leaves your Mac genuinely clean rather than just icon-free. Whatever approach you take, back up userdata first if any of your games store saves locally.