iStat Menus: how to uninstall it cleanly

To uninstall iStat Menus downloaded from the Bjango website, open the iStat Menus menu in the menu bar, choose Uninstall, and click Uninstall again to confirm. That removes the app and the background components it installed in system folders. The Mac App Store version is removed differently: pause it, quit it, drag it to the Trash, and delete two Helper files by hand if the Helper was installed. If the app has already been dragged to the Trash, download it again and run the uninstaller from it.

The details matter because iStat Menus is not a single app. It installs background processes, one of them with system level privileges, and those do not disappear when the app bundle does. This guide covers each install route (website, Mac App Store, Setapp and Homebrew), what to save before removing, and how to confirm nothing is left. Facts come from Bjango's help pages and the Homebrew cask, both checked on 18 October 2026.

Which version is installed

The removal steps depend on where the copy came from, so the first job is to identify it.

Route	How to recognise it	Removal method
Bjango website	Downloaded as a ZIP from bjango.com, 14 day trial	iStat Menus menu, Uninstall
Mac App Store	Listed under purchases in the App Store app	Pause, quit, Trash, delete Helper files
Setapp	Installed and opened through the Setapp app	Uninstall from inside Setapp
Homebrew	Shows up in brew list --cask as istat-menus	brew uninstall --zap istat-menus

The iStat Menus product page lists the current website release as iStat Menus 7.5, requiring macOS 13.5 or later, with a 14 day free trial. The same page says the app is also available through Setapp, which it describes as USD$9.99 per month for iStat Menus plus more than 250 other apps.

The Mac App Store listing is a separate product named iStat Menus 7. On 18 October 2026 the US store showed it at $11.99, version 7.30, requiring macOS 14.0 or later. Bjango's Mac App Store version differences page says that version cannot control fan speeds and needs the separate iStat Menus Helper for some stats, and is otherwise the full app.

A quick way to tell them apart on the Mac: open the App Store app, click the account name, and look at purchases. If iStat Menus is listed there, it is the store version. If not, and Setapp is not installed, it is the website version.

Save settings and the license first

Removal takes a minute. Rebuilding a tuned setup takes much longer, so capture three things first.

Settings. Bjango's Importing and exporting settings page says all settings can be exported and imported through the File menu, and that the same menu can reset everything to defaults. Export before uninstalling if thresholds, notification rules, menu bar items or colours have been customised. The exported file also sets up a new Mac.

The license. Find the purchase receipt or the license details for a website copy and store them somewhere safe, such as a password manager, before removing anything. The Family License covers up to 5 family members, per the product page, so a household license is worth keeping track of even if one Mac no longer needs it.

A screenshot of the menu bar. iStat Menus usually adds several items: CPU, memory, network, sensors, battery, a clock. After they disappear it is easy to forget which readings were used. A screenshot records which items were shown and in what order.

Uninstall the website version

Bjango's Installing and uninstalling iStat Menus page gives the supported route.

To uninstall iStat Menus, please choose iStat Menus › Uninstall from the menu bar, then click Uninstall. This works, even if your trial period is over. Source: bjango.com

Step by step:

1. Open the iStat Menus app from the Applications folder so its settings window and menu are available.
2. In the menu bar, click the iStat Menus menu (next to the Apple menu) and choose Uninstall.
3. Click Uninstall in the confirmation dialog. macOS may ask for an administrator password, because the background components live in system folders.
4. When it finishes, empty the Trash.

Two points from the same page answer the usual worries. The uninstaller works after the trial has ended, so no license is needed to remove the app. And if the app was already dragged to the Trash, the fix is to download it again from Bjango and run the uninstaller from the fresh copy.

The same menu has a Reinstall command. If the reason for uninstalling is that the app stopped working, try Reinstall first; it replaces the background components and often fixes problems after a macOS update.

Uninstall the Mac App Store version

The store version is sandboxed and does not install the same system components, so it has no Uninstall command. Bjango's Mac App Store install and uninstall page gives these steps:

1. In the iStat Menus settings window, click the pause button to the right of the "Global" text in the top tab.
2. Quit iStat Menus.
3. Drag the iStat Menus app from the Applications folder to the Trash.
4. If the iStat Menus Helper was installed, delete these two items:
   • /Library/LaunchDaemons/com.bjango.istatmenus.helper.mas.plist
   • /Library/Application Support/iStat Menus Helper/

Both Helper paths start at the top level Library folder, not the Library folder inside the home folder. In Finder, choose Go, then Go to Folder, and paste each path. Deleting them requires an administrator password. A restart afterwards makes sure the Helper process is no longer running.

Bjango lists the pause step first, so follow the order as written rather than dragging the app to the Trash while it is still active.

Setapp and Homebrew installs

Setapp. A copy installed through Setapp should be removed through Setapp, so the subscription app's records stay in step with what is on the Mac. Quit iStat Menus first, then open Setapp, find iStat Menus in the installed apps and choose to uninstall it. Removing it with Finder alone can leave Setapp thinking it is still installed.

Homebrew. For a copy installed with brew install --cask istat-menus, run:

brew uninstall --zap istat-menus

The Homebrew cask for iStat Menus, checked on 18 October 2026, was at version 7.50.1 with a minimum of macOS 13. Its uninstall block is a useful map of what the website version installs. It unloads five background services:

• com.bjango.istatmenus.agent
• com.bjango.istatmenus.daemon
• com.bjango.istatmenus.installerhelper
• com.bjango.istatmenus.status
• com.bjango.istatmenusnotifications

It then deletes system level files including /Library/Application Support/iStat Menus 7, /Library/LaunchDaemons/com.bjango.istatmenus.fans.plist, /Library/Logs/iStat Menus and two items in /Library/PrivilegedHelperTools. The --zap option goes further and removes the user level preferences, caches, logs and the shared /Users/Shared/.iStatMenus folder. Without --zap, settings stay behind, which is useful if a reinstall is planned and unwanted if it is not.

Check that nothing is left

After uninstalling by any route, three checks confirm the job is complete.

Background processes

Open Terminal and run:

launchctl list | grep -i bjango

No output means no iStat Menus service is loaded for the current user. Activity Monitor gives a second view: search for "iStat" and "bjango" in the CPU tab. If a process remains after a restart, the uninstaller did not run fully; download the app again and run Uninstall from it, as Bjango advises.

Login Items

Open System Settings, General, Login Items and Extensions (called Login Items on macOS 14). Bjango's Login items page notes there may be more than one entry, with iStat Menus or Bjango in the name. After uninstalling, none should remain enabled. If an entry for a deleted app keeps reappearing, the same page documents a last resort, sudo sfltool resetbtm, which resets the login items database. Bjango warns that this affects the login item settings of other apps too, and that the Mac must be restarted afterwards, so treat it as the final step rather than the first.

Privacy permissions

iStat Menus may have been granted access in System Settings, Privacy and Security: for example Bluetooth for showing the battery levels of connected devices, or Calendars for its calendar view. Entries for removed apps are usually cleared, but it is worth opening those lists and removing anything left for iStat Menus. A shorter list is easier to review later.

Removing it to free up menu bar space

Many people uninstall iStat Menus because the menu bar is crowded, not because the readings are unwanted. Bjango's own Menu bar items not showing page explains why space runs out. On the M2 MacBook Air, the 14 inch MacBook Pro and newer 16 inch MacBook Pro models, the camera housing reduces room in the bar; any items that cannot fit on the right side of the notch are hidden by macOS, and status items never appear on the left of it.

That page suggests several ways to keep iStat Menus with a smaller footprint:

• Combined mode. Merges any or all iStat Menus items into a single menu bar item, with a choice of which readings appear in the bar and which appear only in the dropdown.
• Remove labels. Items can be made very compact by removing their text labels.
• An analog system clock. Setting the macOS clock to analog saves some width, especially if the iStat Menus time item is used instead.
• Remove unneeded system items. Hold Command and drag an item out of the menu bar.

If only one or two readings matter, Combined mode with those two in the bar and the rest in the dropdown often solves the problem without uninstalling.

The same Bjango page also points to apps that manage what is shown in the menu bar, which hide and show a group of icons with a single click. That is the other route when the crowding comes from many apps rather than from iStat Menus alone. A menu bar manager for macOS can move rarely used icons out of sight and bring them back on demand. The difference worth checking is whether a hidden icon's menu can be opened directly, by search or a keyboard shortcut, while the bar stays collapsed. The features page shows what that looks like in practice, and the comparison page lists several such tools with prices and the date they were checked.

A simple test helps decide. For each iStat Menus reading on screen, recall the last time it changed a decision. Readings that do, such as battery level or network activity during a large upload, deserve a visible slot. Readings that have not been acted on in a month can go into the Combined dropdown or behind a menu bar manager, or the app can be uninstalled with the steps above.

What to change first

Export the settings, then use the uninstall route that matches the install: the Uninstall command for the website version, pause, quit and Trash for the App Store version, Setapp or brew uninstall --zap istat-menus for those routes. Then check Login Items. If the real goal was a less crowded bar, try Combined mode first, or hide less used icons with a menu bar organizer such as Koffret.