CleanShot X: how to uninstall it cleanly

Dragging an app to the Trash on a Mac removes the binary. It does not remove the folders the app created, the permissions it was granted, or the license attached to it. For a capture tool that has been running for months, those three things are where the actual decisions are. This is a map of what a CleanShot X uninstall leaves behind, and what to settle before starting.

First, work out which job is in front of you

Two very different situations lead to the same search. One is wanting the app gone from the machine. The other is wanting one fewer icon in a menu bar that is already full, with the app itself still doing useful work.

The second case has a shorter answer. The app has a setting called Show menu bar icon. Turning it off removes the icon and leaves the app running, driven entirely by whatever keyboard shortcuts are already assigned. The dialog that appears when the setting is changed says as much: the app stays reachable through the menu bar icon or through the defined keyboard shortcuts. If captures still happen a few times a week, that is usually the setting to change, not the app to remove.

There is a third option worth naming, because a menu bar that is full rarely has one culprit. A menu bar manager for macOS keeps every icon installed and folds the rarely used ones out of sight, which addresses ten icons rather than one. The trade is one more background app in exchange for control over all the rest.

If none of that applies and the app is genuinely finished, keep reading.

Where the files actually live

macOS apps keep their working data outside the app bundle, in the user library. Everything this one writes carries the identifier pl.maketheweb.cleanshotx in its name, which makes the set easy to identify.

Location	What is in it
~/Library/Application Support/CleanShot	The capture history itself, in media and annotate-bg
~/Library/Preferences/pl.maketheweb.cleanshotx.plist	Settings, shortcut assignments, the history index
~/Library/Caches/pl.maketheweb.cleanshotx	Temporary files and downloaded updates
~/Library/HTTPStorages/pl.maketheweb.cleanshotx	Network storage
~/Library/WebKit/pl.maketheweb.cleanshotx	Storage for web views shown inside the app
~/Library/Containers/pl.maketheweb.cleanshotx.*	Four sandboxes for the bundled share and Quick Look extensions

Only the first row matters for disk space. The capture history holds the images themselves, so on a machine that has been capturing for a year it is the one entry likely to run into tens of megabytes or more. The preference file and the caches are small by comparison, and the four container folders are close to empty.

Those four containers exist because the app ships extensions inside its own bundle: two share extensions, for annotating and pinning, and two Quick Look extensions. Removing the app removes the extensions. The container folders stay.

Restrict any manual cleanup to names containing pl.maketheweb.cleanshotx or CleanShot. Folders with similar names belong to other vendors, and deleting one of those quietly resets an unrelated app.

Captures are stored in two places, and one of them is not local

This is the part that is worth settling before anything is deleted. Saved captures exist in two separate systems.

The first is the save folder chosen in settings, often the Desktop by default. Those files are ordinary files and survive the uninstall untouched. The second is the capture history, which the app manages and exposes through its Capture History window. Once the app is gone, that window is gone too, and the only way to reach those files is through Finder at the path in the table above. Opening the history and moving anything worth keeping into a normal folder takes a minute and removes the problem entirely.

Then there is the cloud side. Uploads and share links belong to a separate account, not to the copy of the app on the Mac. The vendor states the relationship plainly:

When purchasing a CleanShot license, you will get a free CleanShot Cloud account. However, using CleanShot Cloud isn't required to use the app or any other features. It's only used for screenshot uploading. Source: cleanshot.com

Deleting the app does not delete anything uploaded, and it does not break links already sent to other people. Those recipients will keep seeing the same content. Anyone who wants a shared link to stop working has to do that on the cloud side, as a separate step.

Permissions and login items outlive the app

A screen capture tool needs screen recording permission, and if recordings use a webcam or audio it also holds camera and microphone permission. The app bundle contains the usage strings for both, describing access limited to the duration of a recording.

Those entries in System Settings under Privacy and Security are not guaranteed to disappear when the app does. A stale row with no app behind it is harmless, but it can be removed by hand if a tidy list matters.

Launch at login works the same way. It is implemented by a small helper app stored inside the main bundle, so deleting the main app removes the helper. The entry under General and Login Items in System Settings may still be listed afterwards, and can be removed there.

One caveat: if reinstalling is even slightly likely, leaving the permission rows alone saves work. Clearing them means granting screen recording again from scratch on the next install.

The license does not die with the app

Cost is a common reason to remove software, so the billing model is worth checking before deciding. As of 10 September 2026, the pricing page lists CleanShot Basic at $35 as a one time purchase that includes one year of updates. After that year, updates can be renewed at $19 per seat per year, or skipped.

After your updates expire, you are able to renew them for another year at just $19 per seat or continue using the last version forever, without renewing. Source: cleanshot.com

The subscription tier, CleanShot Pro, is listed at $10 per user per month billed annually and adds unlimited cloud storage, custom branding and team controls. Basic includes 1 GB of cloud storage. The app requires macOS 13.0 or later, and version 5.0, released on 1 September 2026, added a video editor.

The practical consequence: a one time license key is not consumed by uninstalling. Keys arrive by email from Paddle at purchase and can be retrieved through the vendor's License Manager. Reinstalling later and pasting the same key restores the paid state. A subscription is the exception, because cancelling is a billing action that has nothing to do with whether the app is on the disk.

Where a reinstall would come from

Removing something is easier to commit to once the route back is known, and there are three separate routes here.

The first is the vendor's own download page, which serves the current build to anyone with a valid key. The second is the app's built in updater, which checks a feed the app carries in its own bundle and offers new versions while the app is running. That route disappears along with the app, so it only matters for the copy that is still installed. The third is the subscription bundle the app is also distributed through, where reinstalling means going through that service's own client rather than the vendor's site.

The route matters most for anyone on older hardware. The vendor's FAQ lists, by version number, the last build that supported each superseded macOS release: one build for macOS Catalina, an earlier one for Mojave, an earlier one still for Sierra and High Sierra. Those builds are not on the public download page, and obtaining one means contacting the vendor. On a Mac below macOS 13.0, copying the installed application bundle to an external drive before deleting it is the cheap insurance.

For everyone else on a current macOS, reinstalling is a download and a license key, which makes the decision to remove much less weighty than it feels.

A working order

The sequence matters more than the individual steps.

1. Quit the app from its menu bar icon, and confirm nothing is left running in Activity Monitor.
2. Open Capture History and move anything worth keeping into a normal folder.
3. Open the configured save folder and sort what is there.
4. Decide what happens to any share links already distributed.
5. Move the app out of /Applications.
6. Visit the library locations in the table and remove what is no longer wanted.
7. Check Login Items and the Privacy and Security lists for leftover rows.

Steps two and four are the ones that cannot be undone later. Everything else can be repeated at any time.

If the plan includes reinstalling at some point, skip step six for the preference file. Keeping pl.maketheweb.cleanshotx.plist means shortcut assignments and the save location come back automatically on the next install. Note also that the vendor's FAQ documents which app version was the last to support each older macOS release, so anyone on hardware stuck below macOS 13 should confirm they can obtain that same build again before deleting the copy they have.

When the icon refuses to leave

Occasionally the app is deleted and something still appears to be there. Three causes account for most of it.

The first is a process that was never quit. Removing an application bundle does not stop a copy already running in memory, and a background app with no Dock icon gives no visual clue that it is still alive. Activity Monitor settles this in seconds, and quitting the process there makes the icon disappear.

The second is a stale row in System Settings. Both the Privacy and Security lists and the Login Items list can keep an entry after the application behind it is gone. Nothing is running, and nothing will start, but the name sits there and reads like a failed uninstall.

The third is a different app entirely. Menu bar icons are small and monochrome, and after removing one tool it is common to look at the row and misidentify a neighbour. Holding Command and dragging an icon along the menu bar reveals which ones can be moved and helps separate them.

None of these three requires a restart or a cleanup utility. They require knowing that macOS keeps the running process, the settings entry and the application bundle as three independent things, any of which can survive the other two.

What to change first

If the icon was the real problem, change the Show menu bar icon setting and stop there, because uninstalling a working tool to reclaim one slot is a poor trade. If the menu bar fills up again within a week, the issue is the number of resident apps, not any single one, and the fix is a tool that folds the quiet icons away while keeping them one click from reach: see Features for what that covers and Pricing for what it costs. Koffret is one such option.