How to Uninstall Grammarly from Mac (Complete Guide 2026)
By SM Mehedi Hasan
Quick Answer: To completely uninstall Grammarly from Mac, quit the app from the menu bar, drag it from Applications to Trash, then manually delete leftover files from~/Library/Application Support, ~/Library/Caches, ~/Library/Preferences, and ~/Library/Saved Application State.
Also, remove any browser extensions from Safari, Chrome, or Firefox separately.
Here’s something most Mac users find out the hard way: dragging Grammarly to the Trash is not the same as uninstalling it.
The app disappears from your dock, but hidden support files, caches, and preferences stay behind in your Library folder.
Depending on how long you have used Grammarly, these leftovers can occupy significant disk space and occasionally interfere with other tools.
This guide covers every Grammarly feature available on a Mac: the desktop app, the Safari extension, the Chrome and Firefox extensions, the Word add-in, and the hidden system files.
It also covers what to do when Grammarly stubbornly refuses to delete, even though it’s still running in the background.
Table Of Contents
Full Uninstall Checklist
| Component / Task | Location / Path | Status |
|---|---|---|
| Grammarly desktop app | Finder, Applications folder | [ ] |
| Library/Application Support/Grammarly | ~/Library/Application Support | [ ] |
| Library/Caches (Grammarly files) | ~/Library/Caches | [ ] |
| Library/Preferences (Grammarly .plist files) | ~/Library/Preferences | [ ] |
| Saved Application State | ~/Library/Saved Application State | [ ] |
| Safari extension | Safari, Settings, Extensions | [ ] |
| Chrome extension | chrome://extensions | [ ] |
| Firefox extension | about:addons | [ ] |
| Microsoft Word add-in | Word, Add-ins, COM Add-ins | [ ] |
| Grammarly subscription cancelled | account.grammarly.com/subscription | [ ] |
| Empty Trash (final step) | Right-click Trash, Empty Trash | [ ] |
Before You Start: Check These Two Things
- Cancel your subscription first if you’re done with Grammarly. Uninstalling the app does not cancel your billing. If you have an active paid subscription, go to account.grammarly.com/subscription and cancel it separately.
Otherwise, you’ll continue getting charged even after everything is removed from your Mac.
- Save any documents stored in the Grammarly Editor. If you’ve been using the Grammarly Editor to write and store documents, log in at app.grammarly.com and download any files you want to keep before uninstalling.
Uninstalling the app doesn’t delete cloud documents, but it’s a good habit to have local copies of anything important.
How to Uninstall the Grammarly Desktop App from Mac
1. Quit Grammarly Completely
Grammarly runs in the background even when no document is open. Simply closing the app window isn’t enough. Look for the Grammarly icon in your Mac menu bar (the top-right area of your screen).
Click it and choose Quit Grammarly. If you can’t find it there, open Activity Monitor from Applications, search for “Grammarly,” select any Grammarly processes listed, and click the X button at the top left to force-quit them.
2. Open Finder and Go to Applications
Click the Finder icon in your dock. In the left sidebar, click Applications. Scroll through the list until you find the Grammarly app.
It may appear as “Grammarly” or “Grammarly Desktop” depending on which version you have installed.
3. Move Grammarly to Trash
Right-click the Grammarly app icon and select Move to Trash. Alternatively, click and drag it to the Trash icon in your dock.
If prompted for your administrator password, enter it and confirm. The app disappears from your Applications folder.
4. Empty the Trash
Right-click the Trash icon in your dock and select Empty Trash. Confirm when prompted. This step permanently removes the main Grammarly application file. But the job isn’t done yet — leftover files remain in hidden folders.
Pro Tip
If Grammarly is showing as “open” when you try to move it to Trash and the normal quit method isn’t working, restart your Mac first.
Go to the Apple menu, select Restart, and make sure “Reopen windows when logging back in” is unchecked before confirming.
After the restart, Grammarly’s background processes won’t run, and the app will move to the Trash without error.
How to Remove Grammarly’s Hidden Leftover Files
This is the step most guides barely cover, and it’s the most important one for a truly clean uninstall. When Grammarly installs, it creates files in several Library folders that the standard drag-to-Trash method doesn’t touch.
The Library folder on your Mac is hidden by default. Here’s how to access it and clean up Grammarly’s leftovers.
1. Open the Hidden Library Folder
In Finder, click the Go menu in the top menu bar. Hold down the Option key on your keyboard. A Library option will appear in the dropdown that wasn’t there before.
Click the Library to open it. Alternatively, press Command + Shift + G to open the Go to Folder dialog, type ~/Library and press Enter.
2. Delete Files from Application Support
Inside the Library folder, open the Application Support folder. Look for any folder named Grammarly. If found, move the entire folder to Trash.
This folder contains Grammarly’s core support data and is often the largest leftover file location.
3. Delete Files from Caches
Go back to the Library folder and open Caches. Look for any folders or files named “Grammarly”. Common entries include com.grammarly.ProjectLlama or com.grammarly.safari.extension. Move everything Grammarly-related to Trash.
4. Delete Files from Preferences
In the Library folder, open the Preferences folder. Search for any files with “Grammarly” in the filename. These are usually .plist files that store your Grammarly settings. Move them to Trash.
Deleting these ensures Grammarly’s configuration doesn’t linger on your system.
5. Delete Files from Saved Application State
In the Library folder, open Saved Application State. Look for any folder named after Grammarly, often something like com.grammarly.
ProjectLlama.savedState. Move it to Trash. This folder stores the app’s last window state and is frequently missed in manual uninstall guides.
6. Empty the Trash One More Time
Right-click the Trash icon and choose Empty Trash. This permanently deletes all the leftover files you’ve collected across the Library folders.
After this step, the Grammarly desktop app and its support files are completely gone from your Mac.
Faster Method
If manually navigating Library folders feels tedious, use Spotlight Search. Press Command + Space, type “Grammarly,” and look at the bottom of the results for files beyond the main app.
You can also use the free AppCleaner app from freemacsoft.net, which automatically finds and selects all associated files when you drag the main app onto it.
How to Remove Grammarly from Safari on Mac
- Open Safari and click Safari in the menu bar at the top of your screen.
- Select Settings (or Preferences on older macOS versions)
- Click the Extensions tab.
- Find Grammarly for Safari in the left-hand list.
- Click the Uninstall button next to it.
- Confirm the removal when prompted.
If the Uninstall button is greyed out, it usually means the Grammarly Safari extension was installed from the App Store rather than bundled with the desktop app.
In that case, open the App Store, go to your purchased apps or account, find Grammarly, and delete it from there instead. The extension remains until you remove the App Store version.
How to Remove Grammarly from Chrome on Mac
- Open Google Chrome
- Click the three-dot menu icon in the top-right corner.
- Go to Extensions, then select Manage Extensions.
- Find the Grammarly extension in the list.
- Click the Remove button under it.
- Click Remove again in the confirmation dialog.
Alternatively, go directly to chrome://extensions in your Chrome address bar. This takes you straight to the extensions page without going through menus.
How to Remove Grammarly from Firefox on Mac
- Open Firefox
- Click the three-line menu in the top-right corner.
- Select Add-ons and Themes
- Click Extensions in the left panel.
- Find Grammarly in the list.
- Click the three-dot menu next to it and select Remove
Or type about:addons directly into the Firefox address bar to jump to the Add-ons page.
How to Remove Grammarly from Microsoft Word on Mac
Most guides skip this step entirely, but if you used Grammarly with Microsoft Word, there’s a separate add-in that doesn’t disappear when you delete the main app.
- Open Microsoft Word on your Mac
- Click the Word menu in the top menu bar.
- Select Add-ins
- Look for the Manage option, select COM Add-ins, then click Go.
- Find Grammarly in the list of COM add-ins.
- Uncheck the box next to Grammarly or select it and click Remove
- Click OK and restart Word.
If Grammarly doesn’t appear in COM Add-ins, check under Web Add-ins or the standard Add-ins section.
Some versions of the integration appear under a different category depending on which version of Word you have and how Grammarly was installed on your machine.
Pro Tip
After removing Grammarly from Word, restart Word, then test whether it’s fully gone. Some add-ins appear to uninstall but continue running until the application is fully closed and reopened.
A restart clears the add-in from memory and confirms the removal is working.
What to Do When Grammarly Won't Delete (The "Can't Move to Trash" Error)
This is one of the most frustrating issues Mac users encounter with Grammarly, specifically.
You try to drag it to the Trash, but you get an error: “The item can’t be moved to the Trash because it’s open.” Even after quitting Grammarly from the menu bar, the error persists.
Grammarly runs helper processes in the background that don’t always terminate when you click Quit. Here are the solutions in order of effort.
Fix 1: Force-Quit via Activity Monitor
- Open Activity Monitor from Finder, Applications, Utilities.
- Type “Grammarly” in the search box at the top right.
- Select every Grammarly-related process in the list.
- Click the X button at the top left of the Activity Monitor window.
- Choose Force Quit.
- Try moving the app to the Trash again immediately.
Fix 2: Restart Your Mac
Go to the Apple menu, click Restart, and uncheck “Reopen windows when logging back in.” After the restart, Grammarly’s background processes won’t have restarted. Immediately move the app to Trash before anything else opens.
Fix 3: Use Terminal to Force Delete
If both methods above fail, Terminal gives you direct control. Open Terminal from Applications, Utilities.
Type the following command carefully and press Enter: sudo rm -rf /Applications/Grammarly.app You’ll be prompted for your Mac administrator password. Type it (you won’t see characters appear as you type) and press Enter.
This forces the deletion regardless of whether Grammarly thinks it’s still open. Only use this if the standard methods aren’t working.
Terminal Warning
The sudo rm rf command permanently deletes without sending to Trash. Triple-check the path before pressing Enter. An error in the path could delete the wrong folder. Copy the command exactly as shown above.
In My Experience
The Part Nobody Warns You About
Compared to similar writing tools, Grammarly leaves a more substantial footprint on Mac when removed by the standard drag-to-Trash method.
I ran Disk Diag after what I thought was a complete uninstall and found over 200MB of Grammarly-related cache files still sitting in Library/Caches and Application Support. The main app itself was maybe 40MB.
The support files were five times larger. The Saved Application State folder is the one that catches people most off guard.
Nobody thinks to look there. It’s a folder that macOS uses to restore app windows after a crash or restart, and Grammarly maintains its own state folder that stays behind after the app is deleted.
It’s not huge, but it contains recognizable Grammarly data that shouldn’t be there after an uninstall.
One issue I ran into specifically with the Safari extension: the Uninstall button was greyed out and unclickable. This happens when the extension is installed via the App Store-bundled version rather than the main desktop download.
The fix was to go to the App Store, find the Grammarly keyboard/app entry in purchased apps, and delete it from there.
That cleared the grey-out, and the extension was removed cleanly. Without knowing that distinction, it looks like a bug with no obvious solution.
The frustration I kept seeing in forums: people who think they’ve uninstalled Grammarly completely but still see the Grammarly icon appearing in text fields on websites. Nine out of ten times, that’s the browser extension still running.
The desktop app and the browser extensions are independent installations. Removing one doesn’t remove the other. You need to explicitly remove each extension from each browser where it was installed.
Common Mistakes When Uninstalling Grammarly from Mac
- Dragging to Trash and calling it done. The main app file is a small part of what Grammarly installs.
The Library support files are often five to ten times larger and stay behind after the app is moved to Trash. Always check the Library folders manually or use AppCleaner.
- Forgetting browser extensions after removing the desktop app. They’re independent. Removing the desktop app has zero effect on the Safari, Chrome, or Firefox extensions.
Each browser extension needs its own removal step.
- Do not quit Grammarly before trying to delete it. The “can’t move to Trash because it’s open” error occurs because Grammarly’s background processes are still running.
Always quit from the menu bar icon first, or use Activity Monitor to kill all Grammarly processes before attempting deletion.
- Skipping the Word add-in. Most uninstall guides don’t mention this at all. If you use Grammarly with Microsoft Word, the COM add-in persists even when you quit Word.
It needs to be removed from Word via the Add-ins menu, not via the Finder.
- Not canceling the subscription. Uninstalling the software doesn’t stop billing. A paid Grammarly subscription continues charging your card until you explicitly cancel it at account.grammarly.com/subscription. These are two completely separate actions.
- Forgetting to empty the trash. Files remain in the Trash, occupying disk space, until the Trash is emptied.
To completely uninstall and free up storage, empty the Trash as a final step after everything has been moved there.
Frequently Asked Questions
Quit Grammarly from the menu bar, drag the app from Applications to Trash, then manually delete leftover files from ~/Library/Application Support, ~/Library/Caches, ~/Library/Preferences, and ~/Library/Saved Application State. Also, remove browser extensions separately and empty the Trash.
Grammarly has background processes that keep running even after you click Quit. Force-quit all Grammarly processes in Activity Monitor, then try moving the app to Trash again. Restarting your Mac before deleting also reliably clears all background processes.
No. Uninstalling the app and canceling the subscription are two completely separate actions. To stop billing, go to account.grammarly.com/subscription and cancel the subscription manually before or after uninstalling the app.
Open Safari, click Safari in the menu bar, go to Settings, then Extensions. Find Grammarly for Safari and click Uninstall. If the button is greyed out, delete the Grammarly app from the Mac App Store instead, since that version bundles the Safari extension.
No. The desktop app and browser extensions are independent installations. Deleting the desktop app has no effect on Chrome, Safari, or Firefox extensions. Each extension must be removed separately from within its respective browser’s extension settings.
Is an SEO Specialist and AI Tools Researcher with over 4 years of hands-on experience in search engine optimization. As the founder of Smart AI Helper Pro, he tests and reviews AI writing, SEO, and marketing tools to help creators and business owners grow faster with practical, research-backed strategies.
