Prune Claude Code Data on MacOS

MacOS-Prune-Claude-Code-Data.md

Prune Claude Code Data

If by claude-code you mean Claude Desktop (/Applications/Claude.app) and its Code mode, you can reset it to essentially a first-run state without uninstalling the app. Current Claude Desktop uses bundle ID com.anthropic.claudefordesktop, and its Code/VM/session data lives primarily under ~/Library/Application Support/Claude/. (GitHub)

Full local reset

Quit Claude first, then run:

osascript -e 'quit app "Claude"' 2>/dev/null || true
sleep 2

# Stop helpers / embedded Claude Code processes that may still be alive.
pkill -f '/Applications/Claude.app/' 2>/dev/null || true
pkill -f "$HOME/Library/Application Support/Claude/" 2>/dev/null || true

# Main Desktop application data.
rm -rf -- \
  "$HOME/Library/Application Support/Claude" \
  "$HOME/Library/Application Support/Claude-3p" \
  "$HOME/Library/Caches/com.anthropic.claudefordesktop" \
  "$HOME/Library/Caches/com.anthropic.claudefordesktop.ShipIt" \
  "$HOME/Library/Caches/Claude" \
  "$HOME/Library/HTTPStorages/com.anthropic.claudefordesktop" \
  "$HOME/Library/Saved Application State/com.anthropic.claudefordesktop.savedState" \
  "$HOME/Library/Logs/Claude"

# Preferences.
rm -f -- \
  "$HOME/Library/Preferences/com.anthropic.claudefordesktop.plist"

rm -f -- \
  "$HOME/Library/Preferences/ByHost/com.anthropic.claudefordesktop"*.plist \
  "$HOME/Library/Preferences/ByHost/com.anthropic.claudefordesktop.ShipIt."*.plist \
  2>/dev/null

defaults delete com.anthropic.claudefordesktop 2>/dev/null || true

# Electron/Chromium credential encryption entry, if present.
security delete-generic-password \
  -s "Claude Safe Storage" \
  "$HOME/Library/Keychains/login.keychain-db" \
  2>/dev/null || true

# Temporary Claude Code settings generated by Desktop.
find /private/tmp -maxdepth 1 \
  -user "$USER" \
  -name 'claude-settings-*.json' \
  -delete 2>/dev/null || true

# Reset macOS privacy grants for the Desktop application.
tccutil reset All com.anthropic.claudefordesktop 2>/dev/null || true

Those locations include the embedded Claude Code binary, VM images, Code/Cowork sessions, Electron local/session storage, IndexedDB, caches and updater state. Recent macOS reports confirm paths such as claude-code/, claude-code-vm/, claude-code-sessions/, and local-agent-mode-sessions/ underneath ~/Library/Application Support/Claude. (GitHub)

On the next launch, Claude Desktop should behave like a fresh local installation: you'll need to sign in again, permissions may be requested again, and Code/Cowork components may be downloaded again.

If you also use standalone Claude Code CLI

The commands above deliberately do not touch your CLI state. Claude Code CLI has separate/shared user-level state such as:

~/.claude/
~/.claude.json
~/Library/Caches/claude-cli-nodejs/

To wipe that too:

rm -rf -- \
  "$HOME/.claude" \
  "$HOME/Library/Caches/claude-cli-nodejs"

rm -f -- \
  "$HOME/.claude.json" \
  "$HOME/.claude-code-now-last-dir"

~/.claude/ can contain CLI history, settings, plugins, user-level CLAUDE.md, project session information and browser-integration files, so don't remove it if you only want to reset the Desktop app. Anthropic documents ~/.claude/CLAUDE.md as user-wide Claude Code configuration. (Claude)

Also, this does not delete project-controlled files such as:

your-project/.claude/
your-project/CLAUDE.md
your-project/.mcp.json

Those belong to the projects themselves.

Browser integration residue

If you've enabled Claude's Chrome integration, Desktop may also have installed this native-messaging manifest:

rm -f -- \
  "$HOME/Library/Application Support/Google/Chrome/NativeMessagingHosts/com.anthropic.claude_browser_extension.json"

Only remove it if you want the browser integration reset too. Claude Desktop currently registers that manifest to /Applications/Claude.app/Contents/Helpers/chrome-native-host. (GitHub)

Check whether anything remains

I recommend auditing rather than indiscriminately deleting everything containing “Anthropic”:

find "$HOME/Library" -maxdepth 5 \
  \( -iname '*claude*' -o -iname '*anthropic*' \) \
  -print 2>/dev/null

Also inspect the system-level managed configuration:

ls -la "/Library/Application Support/ClaudeCode" 2>/dev/null

Anthropic uses /Library/Application Support/ClaudeCode/ for machine-wide managed policies, not ordinary user data, so I would not sudo rm -rf that directory unless this is your own unmanaged Mac and you explicitly want those policies gone too. (Claude)

Finally, this is a local Mac reset. It does not delete conversations or other account data stored on Anthropic's servers.