Adobe Flash Player is now officially dead. If you haven’t removed it from your Mac yet, it’s time you do that. This is to keep your Mac uncluttered as well as to avoid any potential threats that could be caused due to the vulnerabilities in the Flash Player.

There are a few sets of instructions you need to follow to remove Flash Player for good. Here we show how you do just that in macOS.

Deauthorize Your Mac

Before you uninstall Flash, you need to deauthorize your Mac in Flash settings. Here’s how you do that:

  1. Click the Apple logo in the top-left of your screen and select System Preferences.
  2. Click the Flash Player icon on the resulting screen.
  3. Head to the tab that says Advanced.
  4. Click the Deauthorize This Computer button.
  5. Select Deauthorize in the prompt on your screen.
Deauthorize Flash on a Mac

Uninstall Adobe Flash Player on Your Mac

Now that Flash Player is deauthorized, you can start removing it from your Mac.

Related: How to Unblock Adobe Flash Player on a Mac

You have two ways to remove Flash Player in macOS. We'll look at both options.

Use the Install Manager to Remove Flash Player

You can use the Adobe Flash Player Install Manager to get rid of Flash Player from your Mac. Of course, you should have this utility available on your Mac.

Here’s how you use that tool to say goodbye to Flash on Mac:

  1. Open a Finder window and access the Applications folder.
  2. Open the Utilities folder.
  3. You’ll find an app that says Adobe Flash Player Install Manager. Double-click on this file to launch it.
  4. Click Uninstall on the following screen to begin removing Flash from your Mac.
Uninstall Flash Player on a Mac

Use the Uninstaller to Remove Flash Player

If you don’t have the Install Manager, Adobe actually provides you with an uninstaller to help you remove Flash from your Mac.

Here’s how you download and use that uninstaller:

  1. Click the Apple logo in the top-left corner and select About This Mac.
  2. Check your macOS version.
  3. If you’re using macOS 10.1 to 10.3, download this Flash uninstaller. If you’re using macOS 10.4 or 10.5, download this Flash uninstaller. If you’re running macOS 10.6 or later, use this Flash uninstaller.
  4. Once the file is downloaded, close all the web browsers on your Mac.
  5. Double-click the downloaded uninstaller file. If a prompt appears, click Open to open the downloaded file.
  6. Click Uninstall in the uninstaller to begin removing Flash from your Mac.
  7. Wait for the uninstaller to finish its job.
  8. When Flash Player is removed, you’ll see a success message on your screen. Click Done to exit the uninstaller.
Remove Flash from a Mac

Manually Remove Leftover Flash Files From Your Mac

Although Flash Player is gone from your Mac, some of its leftover files could still be lingering on your storage. You need to manually clear these files, as these aren’t removed by the official uninstaller in some cases.

You can delete some other macOS folders as well to save your disk space, if you're running low on storage.

Here’s how you do the Flash Player leftover cleaning:

  1. Open a Finder window.
  2. Hold down the Option key on your keyboard and click Go > Library in the menu bar. This opens your Library folder.
  3. Navigate to Preferences > Macromedia, and delete the Flash Player folder.
  4. Head to Caches > Adobe and remove the Flash Player folder.
Delete Flash leftover files on a Mac

Verify if Flash Player Is Uninstalled

If you want to verify that Flash Player is indeed fully uninstalled from macOS, you can do that from Adobe's official website.

Here’s how:

  1. Open a new tab in your browser and go to the Flash Player verification page.
  2. If you can see the Flash animation on that page, it means Flash is still enabled on your Mac. This shouldn’t be the case if you followed the above instructions properly.
  3. If Flash Player is gone from your Mac, you won’t see any animation on that web page.
Verify Flash Player uninstallation

Removing Flash for Good

Adobe has long been urging people to remove Flash Player from their computers. Now that the player is officially dead, you should remove it from your devices including any computers running macOS as described above.

In addition to Flash, you should remove other redundant apps from macOS as well. There are methods that let you remove apps as well as their associated data in a few easy clicks.