How to remove AI tool leftovers from Mac completely: Claude, Ollama, ChatGPT, & more

I’ve seen lots of threads online on how to remove AI tools’ leftovers, and if you’ve tried a few new apps on your Mac, tools like Ollama or ChatGPT desktop, then you might have discovered lots of hidden leftovers after uninstalling them — anything from 5 GB to 40 GB, sometimes even more left behind.

Did you realize that AI apps store pretty large model files outside your standard Applications folder, and that’s why dragging the app icon into your Trash actually removes almost nothing?

AI app leftovers vs. normal app leftovers

All apps leave behind clutter (unless you remove them manually), so that shouldn’t come as a big surprise, but the biggest difference between AI tools and regular apps is the sheer size of the leftovers.  

Regular applications, you should expect from 50-200 MB of leftover things like preference files, caches, and, sometimes, even application support. But AI tools, in particular local LLMs, because they need to download model files, can quite shockingly reach anything between 4 and 40 GB each in leftovers.

They are stored in custom home directories, for example, ~/.ollama/models, that fall outside of your Library folder; this means uninstallers often miss them entirely.

What I found is that depending on the type of AI tool you've used, they’ve got very different cleanup needs:

• Local LLM shells like Ollama or LM Studio have the biggest footprints, and that's ultimately because of the custom directories and multiple downloaded models.

• Cloud AI clients like ChatGPT desktop or Claude desktop are a bit smaller, but they still leave a ton of app and chat cache and other data in your Library.

• AI tools you use in your browser, like ChatGPT, Claude, and even Gemini, do have the smallest cleanup required, but it’s still worth doing.

Ok, so now we’ve covered that, let’s get into how to remove AI tools leftovers.

How to remove AI tool leftovers 

Ollama and LM Studio

One thing I thought that’s really handy is that before you start cleaning up these two tools, if you run these commands in Terminal (depending on which one you’ve got, you can see the exact space storage size you’re about to reclaim.

• du -sh ~/.ollama

• du -sh ~/.cache/lm-studio ​

How to remove Ollama

First, fully quit the app. Then, in your Applications folder, get rid of the app icon by sending it to the Trash and emptying it afterward.

After that, you’ll need to remove the whole ~/.ollama/ folder by going to Finder > Go > Go To Folder.

Then it’s also worth checking for these locations, too:

• ~/Library/Application Support/Ollama

• ~/Library/Caches/Ollama

• ~/Library/LaunchAgents/

In that last folder, check for any background services that got installed, and delete anything with Ollama in the name. These steps could help you claim back up to 40 GB

LM Studio removal

Pretty much the same technique here: you need to quit the app first, remove the app icon in your Applications folder, and then check in these locations, deleting anything related to the app you find.

• ~/.cache/lm-studio/models,~/Library/Application Support/lm-studio/.

• ~/.cache/lm-studio/

• ~/Library/Application Support/lm-studio/.

Depending on your model library, this can recover around 5-30 GB+.

Removing cloud AI desktop clients

Definitely still worth doing, even though the leftovers are smaller.

ChatGPT Desktop

So, as always, first remove the App icon from your Applications folder, then empty your Trash. Then you’ll need to look in all of these locations and remove what you find here:

• ~/Library/Application Support/com.openai.chat/

• ~/Library/Caches/com.openai.chat/

• ~/Library/Preferences/

You won’t find huge model files because all the processing is cloud-based, but you can reclaim hundreds of MBs by getting rid of cached conversations and temporary files.

Claude Desktop

Again, remove the Claude app from your Applications folder, then empty your Trash, then look in these locations and remove what you find.

• ~/Library/Application Support/Claude/

• ~/Library/Caches/Claude/

Other cloud clients

Tools like Gemini or Copilot, I would follow the above steps, removing the app first, emptying your Trash, then changing in Finder for their Support and Caches in these locations:

• ~/Library/Application Support

• ~/Library/Caches/

How to remove AI tool leftovers from browsers

Even if you only use AI tools in your browser, they’re still leaving behind caches and junk on your MacBook. Here’s how to clean it all up.

In Safari browser, go to Safari > Settings > Privacy > Manage Website Data, search for any of the AI services you use. I would also, for a wider reset, go to History > Clear History.

In Chrome, go to Settings > Privacy and security > Delete browsing data, then select cookies and cached images/files.

You can go a step further and do site-specific cleanup in Chrome by opening up chrome://settings/content/all, searching for the AI domain, and deleting what you find.

This won’t reclaim masses of gigabytes, but it will remove conversation traces and session data, which is useful for privacy.

The full cleanup

After removing your AI tools manually, I’d also just do a quick final check by going to Finder > Go to Folder and looking one last time in these locations. If you sort by size, you can scan for anything you might have missed:

• ~/Library/Application Support/

• ~/Library/CachI es/

Most Mac users also have leftover files from dozens of non-AI apps, too, that they deleted over the years, and unless you’ve been completing the manual leftovers removal after each time, chances are, they could be consuming space you didn’t even know could be reclaimed.

I haven’t always got the time to go hunting around in my Library folders, so I prefer using the Applications feature from CleanMyMac. It fully removes apps (including AI tools) and their leftovers and support files, too.

Then, I run its Cleanup feature just to catch any cache buildup and system junk files. If you’ve never installed this tool, you can test it for 7 days first — get your free trial here.