Alfred: how to uninstall it cleanly

The bowler hat sits in the menu bar next to a cloud client, a chat client, a backup agent and an input switcher, and finding the right icon has started to cost a couple of seconds every time. Removing a launcher is one way to get a slot back. It is worth knowing what the removal actually does before starting, because the published procedure is two steps long and that brevity hides three things that survive it: the preferences, the licence activation, and the permissions granted to the app in System Settings.

The published procedure is two steps

Running with Crayons, the company behind Alfred, keeps the removal instructions on a single help page. Quit the app from the bowler hat in the menu bar, then drag it from the Applications folder to the Trash. That is the whole documented process.

The order matters. Dragging the bundle out while the process is still resident leaves a running copy in memory with no file behind it, and the login item then fires at the next restart with nothing to launch. Quitting first avoids that.

There is a common snag at step one. If the menu bar item was hidden at some point, there is no hat to click. The app is still running, so the default hotkey Option and Space opens the search window, and Command and comma from there opens Preferences. Failing that, double clicking the app in the Applications folder brings the preferences up. To put the hat back, open the Appearance tab, click Options at the bottom left, and uncheck Hide menu bar icon.

What the two steps remove is the application bundle. Settings, clipboard history, workflows and themes live elsewhere and stay where they are. That is deliberate rather than a bug: reinstalling restores the previous setup instead of starting from nothing.

App cleaners are explicitly not recommended

The obvious shortcut is a cleaner utility that scans for related files and removes them in one pass. The same help page states that this is not recommended, on the grounds that cleaners can be overzealous and may remove files that the current version still needs.

The page also documents the recovery path for anyone who has already run one. Open the Trash immediately and drag any Alfred related files back out before it is emptied. If the Trash has already been emptied, the documented options are restoring from a Time Machine backup taken before the cleaner ran, or contacting the developer for help resetting the app.

That window is short. A cleaner that has run and a Trash that has been emptied is not a recoverable state, which is the practical argument for doing the file removal by hand instead. The list of files is published, so there is nothing to guess at.

The settings live in four documented locations

The developer publishes a reset procedure, which is the same set of files anyone doing a thorough removal would want.

To reset Alfred, first quit Alfred. Navigate to your user directory's Library folder, and delete the following files. This will reset Alfred to defaults. Source: alfredapp.com, read September 10, 2026

For version 4 and version 5, the listed paths are these.

Location	What it holds
~/Library/Application Support/Alfred	Workflows, snippets, themes, the licence activation
~/Library/Preferences/com.runningwithcrayons.Alfred-Preferences.plist	Preferences window state
~/Library/Preferences/com.alfredapp.Alfred.plist	App level settings
~/Library/Caches/com.runningwithcrayons.Alfred	Cached data, safe to remove at any time

One detail is worth checking rather than trusting from memory. A second page on the same site, covering preferences that fail to persist, lists com.runningwithcrayons.Alfred.plist where the reset page lists com.alfredapp.Alfred.plist. Different builds have written under different names over the years. Searching the Preferences folder for both com.runningwithcrayons and com.alfredapp catches whatever is actually there.

Anyone who ran version 3 for a long stretch has a second set with a 3 in the name: com.runningwithcrayons.Alfred-3.plist, com.runningwithcrayons.Alfred-Preferences-3.plist, a Caches folder called com.runningwithcrayons.Alfred-3, and an Application Support folder called Alfred 3. Those are separate files and survive independently.

Before deleting the Application Support folder, open it. Hand built workflows, saved snippets and custom themes are inside, and none of that is recreated by reinstalling. Copying the folder to the Desktop first costs a few seconds and makes the decision reversible.

Syncing puts the settings somewhere else entirely

Alfred can keep its preferences in a synced folder so that two Macs share one setup. The documentation names Dropbox, Google Drive, iCloud Drive and OneDrive as the services people use for this, and the file to look for is called Alfred.alfredpreferences.

This changes the removal in both directions. Cleaning only the home folder leaves a full copy of the settings in the cloud. Deleting the synced folder while a second Mac still relies on it takes that Mac's setup down as well. The order that avoids both outcomes is to open the Advanced tab first, read the current sync location, and decide whether another machine depends on it before touching anything.

The documentation also flags the Dropbox Apps folder as a location known to cause problems for many users, and describes how to point the sync folder back to a local path. If the goal is tidying rather than removal, moving the preferences back to the local default is a smaller change with the same calming effect.

The Powerpack activation goes with the settings folder

Alfred itself is free. The Powerpack unlocks workflows, clipboard history, file navigation, theming and the rest. The purchase page lists a Single License at £34 and a Mega Supporter tier at £59 that includes free lifetime upgrades. Version 5 shipped in July 2022, and older licences are handled through a discounted upgrade path.

The point that catches people out is documented on the troubleshooting page for preferences that will not save: deleting the Application Support folder removes the existing preferences and the Powerpack licence activation, so the licence has to be entered again afterwards. A removal that includes that folder is therefore also a removal of the activation.

The licence key arrives by email at purchase time, with Alfred Powerpack in the subject line. If it cannot be found, the documented route is to contact the developer from the email address used for the purchase, and the help page notes that writing from a different address will almost certainly slow the reissue down. Corporate licences are handled by the in house administrator instead, not by individual team members. Searching the mail archive and saving the key somewhere takes a minute and is best done before the folder goes.

Permissions outlive the app

Alfred asks for several macOS permissions, and the documentation lists what each one is for. Accessibility covers snippet expansion and simulated key events. Full Disk Access covers reading browser bookmarks. Contacts covers contact search. Automation covers running AppleScript and System Events.

Dragging the app to the Trash does not clear those entries. They stay listed under Privacy and Security in System Settings, and on a machine that has accumulated a decade of utilities that list becomes hard to read. Removing the entries for an app that is gone is a small piece of hygiene worth doing at the same time.

There is also a reinstall detail hiding in the same page. Full Disk Access does not take effect until the app has been quit and relaunched after being added, so an app that appears not to work right after a fresh install is often waiting on that restart rather than on more permissions.

The login item is a separate switch

Alfred starts at login when the Launch Alfred at login box in General preferences is ticked, and that setting is what keeps the hat in the menu bar every morning without anyone launching it. It is worth knowing that this is one checkbox rather than a property of having the app installed, because it gives a middle option between keeping everything and deleting everything.

Unticking it leaves the app in place and takes it out of the startup sequence. Nothing appears in the menu bar until the app is opened deliberately, which is a reasonable setting for a tool that has stopped being part of daily work but might be needed again. It is also the cheapest way to test whether the app is actually missed. A week without it running answers the question better than any amount of deliberation about whether to uninstall.

If the app is removed while the login item is still enabled, the entry can linger in the Login Items list in System Settings for a while. It does no harm beyond the confusion of seeing an app there that no longer exists, and clearing it is the same kind of cleanup as clearing the stale permission entries. Doing both in the same pass, right after the app goes, saves a second visit to System Settings later.

Removing a launcher frees exactly one slot

If the motive for the uninstall is a crowded menu bar, it is worth being honest about the arithmetic. Removing this app returns one slot. A typical menu bar carries something closer to ten items once cloud storage, chat, backup, meetings, input switching, battery and clipboard tools are counted, and sorting them by how often they are actually clicked usually produces two or three that get pressed daily and a long tail that only gets looked at.

There are two ways to get the slot back without uninstalling anything. The first is built in: Appearance, then Options at the bottom left, then Hide menu bar icon. The app stays resident, Option and Space still opens the search window, and the hat is gone. For anyone who only ever launches the app from the keyboard, this is the whole solution.

The second is to hide the resident icons as a group with a menu bar manager, which turns a row of ten into one collapsible strip. The thing that decides whether that feels useful or annoying is what happens to a hidden icon when it needs to be clicked, so it is worth reading how hidden items are reached before installing anything, and how it compares sets out where the different tools in this category draw their lines. Costs differ in shape as well as amount, between one time purchases and yearly terms, which pricing lays out.

What to change first

Before deleting anything, find the Powerpack email and save the key, then check the Advanced tab for a sync location. After that the removal is the documented two steps plus a manual pass over the four Library paths, and a look at Privacy and Security to drop the stale permission entries.

If the crowded menu bar was the real problem rather than the launcher, hide the hat from the Appearance tab and keep the app, then deal with the other nine icons as one job with Koffret.