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macOS: How to uninstall an application completely

On rare occasions, it might be necessary to uninstall and remove an application prior to a complete reinstallation. This applies to our sequencers Cubase and Nuendo as well as to Steinberg VST plug-ins.

All relevant files of the application that have to be deleted can be found in the following paths:

  • System volume/Applications/
  • System volume/Users/<Username>/Library/Preferences/*
  • System volume/Library/Audio/Plug-ins/VST/
  • System volume/Library/Audio/Plug-ins/VST3/Steinberg/
  • System volume/Library/Audio/Plug-ins/Components/
  • System volume/Library/Application Support/Steinberg/
  • System volume/Library/Application Support/Steinberg/Content/VST Sound/**
  • System volume/Library/Application Support/Steinberg/Content/Halion/VST Sound/**

*Since Mac OS X 10.7 (Lion), the user's Library folder is hidden. Here is how to access it: In the menu bar of Mac OS X click on 'Go'. While the menu is folded out, holding down the [alt] key (options) will show the 'Library' entry.
**These two folders only exist in case the product you have installed, also contains a sound library.

Further cleaning

In some cases, even after removing those files it could happen that the reinstallation of the product might fail.

In that case, please follow these instructions:

Mac OS X 10.5 or earlier

Please remove the .pkg files related to that application on the following location:

  • System volume/Library/Receipts

Mac OS X 10.6 or later

The receipts don't exist anymore, instead something like the receipts are stored in another place. This is how you can make them visible:

  • Open Terminal.app (found in /Applications/Utilities)
  • Type and press enter: "cd /private/var/db/receipts" (without the quotation marks!)
  • Type and press enter: "open ."(with a space between open and the dot and again without the quotation marks!)
  • Now a finder window opens with information about the installed packages.
  • You should delete all the Steinberg related .bom and .plist entries (Make sure you are only deleting the entries related to the application you want to uninstall!)

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