How to uninstall WhatsApp on a Mac

What you lose and what you keep

WhatsApp on a Mac is a linked device. When you link it, your phone sends it an encrypted copy of your recent message history, which is stored locally on the Mac, and your chat history remains on your phone. Uninstalling deletes the Mac's copy; the phone's is untouched, and so is your WhatsApp account.

There is nothing to restore from on the Mac side: WhatsApp's help says restoring chat history is not available on the Mac app. So the one thing to do first is save, outside WhatsApp, any document or photo you want to keep as a file on this Mac. Linking the Mac again later copies your recent history back from the phone, though WhatsApp notes that not every message and chat is synced to a linked device.

Uninstall WhatsApp

1. Open Finder and click Applications.
2. Right-click WhatsApp and choose Move to Trash.
3. Follow the prompts to use Touch ID or enter your password, then empty the Trash.

A Mac can have a second copy, named WhatsApp 2, beside the first. If Applications shows one, remove it the same way.

Log the Mac out from your phone

Removing the app from the Mac does not tell your phone. In WhatsApp on the phone, open Linked devices, tap the Mac and tap Log out. If you leave it, WhatsApp disconnects a linked device after 30 days of inactivity anyway.

Check what is left

WhatsApp keeps its data in two folders in your Library: its container, and a shared container that holds the chats and every photo, video, voice note and document it has saved. To see whether they are still there, and how much they hold:

du -sh ~/Library/Containers/net.whatsapp.WhatsApp ~/Library/Group\ Containers/group.net.whatsapp.WhatsApp.shared 2>/dev/null

If either is still there after WhatsApp has gone, go to it with Shift-Command-G in Finder and drag it to the Trash. That is the Mac's copy of your chats, so do it only once you have saved anything you need. WhatsApp's extensions have small containers of their own, named after the same bundle ID,net.whatsapp.WhatsApp; for those and anything else, see the leftover files after uninstalling an app.

If the aim is space, not leaving

Most of the shared container is media, and that is the part that grows. WhatsApp can delete media chat by chat without uninstalling: open a chat, click its name, choose Media, Links, and Docs, click Select, choose the items and delete them for yourself. There is no way to delete all of a chat's media in one step.

Where the app comes in

RefreshYourMac's WhatsApp Media lists the shared container's media one row per chat, named from WhatsApp's own database, and moves the chats you choose to another drive with a README saying which chat is which; your messages stay in WhatsApp, and copying a chat's folder back brings its photos and videos back. It is rated Backup recommended and refuses to move anything while WhatsApp is open. To uninstall instead, Uninstall an App, described in how to uninstall apps on a Mac, lists WhatsApp, its extensions and every container by bundle ID with sizes before anything moves, and leaves the shared container that holds your chats unticked, so it goes only if you tick it. Your own files go to the Trash, so an uninstall can be undone until you empty it. Both are in the download edition, not the Mac App Store edition.