AlDente: how to uninstall it cleanly

Dragging an app to the Trash works for most Mac software. It does not work for this one, and the failure mode is unpleasant: a Mac that stops charging entirely, with no app left on it to explain why.

AlDente installs a privileged helper that runs outside the normal application sandbox, because pausing and resuming charging is not something a sandboxed app can do. Removing the visible part while leaving the invisible part behind is what causes the trouble. This is the documented removal sequence, what to settle before starting it, and how to recover if the machine is already in the bad state. All of it was checked against the vendor's published pages on 10 September 2026.

Why the Trash is not enough here

Two things are installed, not one. The application bundle sits in the Applications folder where it can be seen. A privileged helper sits in a system location where it cannot, which is why the installer asked for an administrator password in the first place.

There is also state involved. A charge limiter works by holding the machine's charging behaviour in a non default configuration. Deleting the controller while that configuration is still applied leaves the setting in place with nothing left to manage it. The vendor connects these dots explicitly in its FAQ: in the entry covering a Mac that will not charge any more, it states that some users hit this behaviour when something goes wrong during installation or uninstallation, and points back to the removal guide as the way to avoid it.

The practical framing is that this is not a delete operation, it is a hand back operation. Return charging control to macOS first, remove the software second. Done in that order it takes a few minutes. Done in the wrong order, the recovery takes longer than the removal would have.

Settle two things before you start

Put the charge limit back to 100 percent. The FAQ's short version of the uninstall procedure begins here: set the limit back to 100 percent, wait 30 seconds for the change to take effect, quit the app, and then remove it. The longer guide adds that disabling the app's settings as well is the thorough approach. Either way, the machine should be back to ordinary charging behaviour before anything gets deleted.

Deactivate the licence if the paid tier is in use. The documented path is to open the dashboard, click the gear button in the lower left, choose Manage License, save the licence code somewhere safe, and click Deactivate. This matters because one purchase can be active on up to three macOS user accounts at a time. Removing the app without deactivating leaves one of those three slots occupied by a machine that no longer runs the software, and reclaiming it means going through the payment processor's support instead of clicking one button.

One more distinction that catches people out. Uninstalling does not cancel a subscription. Billing sits with the payment processor, not with the copy on the Mac, so an annual licence keeps renewing after the app is gone. Cancellation is a separate task, handled through the buyer portal using the email address from the original purchase.

The documented removal sequence

The vendor ships a removal screen inside the app rather than a separate uninstaller. The published steps:

1. Click the menu bar icon, then the dashboard icon in the upper right corner.
2. In the window that opens, click the Settings button in the lower left corner.
3. On the general settings view, click the Remove AlDente button.
4. In the pop up that appears, check all boxes so associated files are removed too, then press Delete Permanently. The vendor notes this step is irreversible.
5. A system dialog asks for permission to uninstall the helper application. Enter the macOS user password and click OK.
6. Restart the Mac to reset the SMC.

Steps four and five are the ones that get skipped. Leaving the boxes unchecked removes the app but keeps its associated files. Dismissing the password prompt leaves the privileged helper installed, which is the component that actually touches charging. Step six is part of the published procedure rather than an optional extra.

If the app has already been dragged to the Trash and the removal screen is therefore unreachable, the cleanest recovery is to reinstall the same version and then run the documented sequence properly. That is less risky than hunting through system folders by hand.

What the checkboxes are actually removing

It helps to know roughly where a Mac app puts its belongings, so the removal screen stops looking like a black box. By macOS convention, application preferences live in Preferences and Application Support inside the user's Library folder, a privileged helper lives in /Library/PrivilegedHelperTools, and the launch configuration that starts it lives in /Library/LaunchDaemons. Checking every box on the removal screen is what sweeps that set together.

Knowing the locations is not an invitation to visit them. Deleting files by guesswork in system level directories is how other applications' helpers get destroyed, and those failures surface days later as something unrelated breaking. If a vendor supplies a removal screen, that screen is the correct tool. Apple's own documentation on system files and settings is available at Apple Support for anyone who wants to identify a file before touching it.

The one file worth deliberately keeping is the licence code, saved during deactivation. Everything else is disposable. That code is the thing that is annoying to retrieve later, because recovering it means going back through the payment processor with the address used at checkout rather than reading it out of the app.

If the Mac has already stopped charging

This is the failure this whole procedure exists to prevent, and the vendor publishes a fix for it.

On Apple silicon: confirm the Mac is plugged in, shut it down, close the lid, wait two minutes, then power it on. Charging resumes.

On Intel: follow Apple's own SMC reset instructions for the specific model.

The vendor attributes the symptom to an installation or uninstallation that did not complete, which is consistent with the helper being left in place while the app that manages it is gone. Neither fix requires reinstalling anything.

A related note appears in the release history. Version 1.37.3 lists a change stating the app no longer closes automatically after the helper is uninstalled. That is a behaviour difference between versions, and it is worth knowing about, because an app window that stays open after removal is not evidence that something failed. Force quitting at that point, or starting to delete system files manually, turns a completed removal into a broken one.

Turn the macOS features back on

There is one piece of cleanup that almost nobody does, and it leaves the machine worse off than before the app was ever installed.

Setting this app up correctly meant switching off the Apple features that overlap with it. The vendor's guidance was to disable Optimized Battery Charging so the two systems would not interfere, to set the macOS charge limit to 100 percent for the same reason, and to disable Manage Battery Longevity because it permanently reduces maximum capacity by around 5 percent. Anyone who followed that advice now has a Mac with no battery protection running at all: the third party limiter is gone and the built in ones are still switched off.

So open System Settings, go to Battery, and put back whatever was turned off. This is worth a moment's thought rather than a reflexive toggle. The vendor's own blog notes that the first beta of macOS 26.4 expanded Optimized Battery Charging with a built in manual charge limiter, which means the basic case, picking one ceiling and leaving it there, is now covered by the operating system. For a lot of people that is the whole reason the third party app was installed in the first place.

One caveat carries over from the vendor's FAQ: the macOS charge limit does not persist when the Mac is powered off. On a machine that gets shut down often rather than slept, watch the behaviour for a few days after switching over, rather than assuming the setting is holding.

Deciding to stop using a particular app and deciding to stop protecting the battery are two separate decisions. Removing the software makes the first one. The second one needs to be made deliberately.

If the reason for removing it is a crowded menu bar

Removal is sometimes not about the software at all. If the charge limiting is still wanted and the actual complaint is that the menu bar has too many icons in it, deleting the app solves the wrong problem.

The app's Appearance settings do include a switch to hide its menu bar icon. That frees the slot, but the icon is also the readout for the current battery level and the entry point for changing the limit, so hiding it converts an interactive tool into a set once and forget one. For someone who tops up before travel or adjusts limits by season, that trade is a bad one.

Collapsing the row is the other approach. A menu bar organizer leaves every icon installed and reachable while keeping the row short, so a charge limiter can stay visible on demand without occupying attention permanently. Judging that kind of tool comes down to how the collapsed state behaves, which the Features page sets out, and how the options in this category differ, which the How it compares page covers.

Claim the slot before something else does

Once the removal is finished there is one free slot in the menu bar, and it will not stay free. The next background app installed takes it without asking. Doing the rest of the cleanup while the row is already short is more efficient than starting over in three months.

Work through it in two passes. First, open the preferences of each app that has a menu bar item and turn off the ones that have a setting for it, which covers most cloud storage, backup, and sync tools. Second, open Control Center settings in macOS and decide individually whether Bluetooth, Sound, Focus, and the rest belong in the menu bar permanently or only in Control Center.

What survives both passes is the genuinely useful middle: items that get clicked sometimes and do not need to be visible the rest of the time. That group is what a collapsing tool is for.

What to change first

Set the charge limit back to 100 percent and deactivate the licence before anything gets deleted, then use the app's own removal screen with every box checked rather than the Trash. Afterwards, spend ten minutes on the remaining icons instead of leaving the empty slot to the next installer, and Koffret is one way to collapse what is left.