There are several reasons why a macOS user might want to uninstall Safari from their Mac. They may prefer to use another app to surf the net, not use Apple’s navigation app much to visit their favorite websites, or they might You may want to save storage space to install other apps on your device.
The macOS operating system tends to accumulate a lot of application data – even when it is deleted – in the storage space, so removing all those applications that you do not use can help you recover a lot of storage space.
Either because you want to use another application such as Firefox or Google Chrome to visit web pages or because for any reason you want to remove Safari to reinstall it, you may have asked yourself: Can you really remove an application installed by default on the system such as Safari? The answer is yes and in this article, we will explain step by step how to do it.
How to uninstall Safari on a Mac
Before permanently deleting Safari from your computer, keep in mind that you can lose very important data found within the application since when you uninstall Safari software, data associated with the web browser is also deleted.
So if you are thinking of removing Safari on macOS, first make sure that you have saved all the necessary information with the following points before proceeding with the uninstallation:
- Passwords
- Bookmarks
- Favorites
- Browsing history
- Extensions
Steps to remove Safari with Terminal
Uninstalling a native application like Safari is not easy, you will not be able to send it directly to the Trash and voila, we are not talking about a mundane task that an average user could perform. The procedure is complex, so make sure you follow all the steps in the correct order.
- Restart your Mac and immediately hold down the “Command + R” key combination before running macOS to enter recovery mode.
- In the utility menu select the option “Terminal”.
- Then type “disable cgsrutil” to disable your Mac’s Integrity Protection System and press the “Enter” key.
- Then restart your Mac again.
- Access your administrator account.
- In the Terminal window type “Sudo mount -up / System / Applications” and press “Enter”.
- Enter your account password.
- Then go to cd / Applications / and press the “Enter” key.
- Enter “Sudo rm -rf Safari. App / and press” Enter.
- Finally re-enable the Integrity Protection System.
How to uninstall Safari with other tools
There are much simpler alternatives to removing Apple’s native web browsing application on a Mac computer. If you don’t want to go through such complex procedures as the one we have previously dictated, you can simply download specialized software for tasks like this.
To uninstall Safari on a Mac you can download iMyMac PowerMyMac or similar tools in order to speed up the uninstallation process much more. Follow the steps we share below to remove Safari on macOS with this software.
- Describe iMyMac PowerMyMac.
- Select the “Uninstaller” tool.
- Next, click on the «Scan» button.
- Choose the application you want to remove, in this case, Safari.
- Then click on the “Clean” button.
- The software will automatically take care of completely removing the application and its associated files.
In this case, the iMac PowerMyMac application offers a totally free trial version for the first 500 MB of file cleaning. This app has many functions to uninstall, clean, and analyze macOS applications, but if you do not want to pay for a premium version, you can opt for many other alternatives that exist on the market such as CleanMyMac X, Disk Doctor, AppCleaner, or Ccleaner, among others.
We hope this guide to uninstall Safari from your Mac computer has been helpful for you. Remember that it is important to properly save all the information and data you need from your web browser before deleting it. What is your favorite web browsing application? Do you regularly use Safari on macOS?