Adobe Flash Player is dead. Here’s how to remove it from your Mac.

By

How to remove Adobe Flash Player from your Mac
It's time to give Flash Player the boot.
Image: Adobe/Cult of Mac

At long last, Adobe Flash Player is finally dead. Not only do you no longer need to have it installed on your Mac, but as of January 12, Adobe will actually begin blocking Flash Player content from working at all.

We’ll show you how to remove Flash Player from your Mac right away.

Flash Player has endured more than its fair share of problems over the years. It has been criticized for its impact on system performance and battery life, and particularly for its numerous high-profile security flaws.

Apple co-founder and CEO Steve Jobs famously slammed Flash Player in a 2010 open letter titled “Thoughts on Flash.” In it, he explained why the technology would never be supported by iPhone, iPad or iPod touch.

Now, 11 years later, Flash Player’s time is finally up — and Adobe says all users should uninstall it immediately “to help protect their systems.” We’ll show you how to delete Flash from your macOS machine.

How to remove Flash Player from your Mac

Removing Flash Player isn’t quite as simple as uninstalling a macOS app. But it is easy. Just follow these steps:

  1. Download the Flash Player uninstaller for Mac OS X 10.6 and later.
  2. Ensure all browsers installed on your Mac are closed.
  3. Open the Flash Player uninstaller and click Uninstall.
  4. Wait for the uninstaller to confirm Flash Player is uninstalled.
  5. Now manually delete the following directories:

/Library/Preferences/Macromedia/Flash\ Player

/Library/Caches/Adobe/Flash\ Player

You should now restart your Mac. You can then visit Adobe’s website to confirm Flash Player has been removed from your system; simply click the “Check Now” button on this page.

Disabling Flash in your browser

Some third-party browsers, including Chrome and Firefox, shipped with Flash Player baked in. You’ll need to ensure it is disabled manually.

That’s easy if you use Firefox, which stopped shipping Flash Player support with its version 85 release. So, simply updating to the latest version of the browser is enough to ensure Flash Player isn’t running.

If you use Chrome or Microsoft Edge on your Mac, follow these steps:

  1. In a browser window, click the three dots at the right end of the menu bar.
  2. Click Settings.
  3. Under Privacy and security, click Site settings.
  4. Under Content, click Flash.
  5. Enable the Block sites from running Flash option.

And that’s it, your Mac is now free from Flash Player. Hurrah!

Newsletters

Daily round-ups or a weekly refresher, straight from Cult of Mac to your inbox.

  • The Weekender

    The week's best Apple news, reviews and how-tos from Cult of Mac, every Saturday morning. Our readers say: "Thank you guys for always posting cool stuff" -- Vaughn Nevins. "Very informative" -- Kenly Xavier.