Uninstalling Outbound

Outbound removes itself from Settings › General. Removal turns off the network filter, removes its configuration and stops the background agent. You choose whether to keep or delete your data. Outbound quits when removal succeeds; turn on Move Outbound to the Trash before quitting if you also want it to move the app to the Trash.

Remove Outbound

In Settings › General, the Remove Outbound section sits at the bottom. Under Choose what happens to your data., choose one of these options:

• “Keep rules, settings and connection history so a reinstall picks them up.”
• “Delete rules, settings and connection history. The licence stays in the keychain, so reinstalling needs no key.”

Click Remove Outbound…. The confirmation depends on your choice:

• Remove Outbound and Keep Its Data: “The network filter, its System Settings entry and the background agent will be removed. Rules, settings and connection history are kept so a reinstall picks them up.”
• Remove Outbound and Delete Its Data: “The network filter, its System Settings entry, the background agent, and all rules, settings and history will be removed. The licence stays in the keychain, so reinstalling needs no key. The administrator audit log is kept.”

Removal unblocks every connection, so it asks for Touch ID or your password first, the same approval an unblock asks for.

The section shows progress through each step in order: stopping the background agent, removing the DNS proxy, encrypted DNS settings and the speed-limit proxy, removing the filter from System Settings, turning off the network filter, then removing the legacy login item and the cleanup helper. If you chose to delete data, its final step says “Data deletion is scheduled after Outbound quits.” The cleanup helper waits for Outbound and the other processes writing its data to exit before deleting the files.

A failed step stops the sequence, and the reason appears in the section. If macOS does not answer the deactivation request within 120 seconds, Outbound reports a failure. That deadline is cancelled once macOS asks for user approval. If a restart is required, Outbound tells you to restart to finish removing the network filter. When you also chose to remove system data and other users’ data, the filter keeps its own data until the restart; after restarting, run removal again to delete it.

If you leave the Trash option off, move the app to the Trash yourself. If moving it to the Trash fails, quit Outbound so scheduled data deletion can run, and move the app in Finder.

Caution

Connections are no longer checked once the filter is removed. On a Mac that must stay filtered, do not remove Outbound before you have a replacement in place.

Removing Outbound for every user

On a Mac with more than one account, an administrator can remove Outbound’s data for every local user at once.

1. In Settings › General › Remove Outbound, turn on Also remove system data and other users’ data. The page says: “Administrator approval is required. Only the reviewed paths will be removed. Other users’ keychain items and Spotlight indexes stay until each user removes Outbound.”
2. Open Review every cleanup path and check the list. It names every folder that would be deleted, for each local account and for the system. Removal deletes only what is on this list, and it refuses to start if the list changes before you confirm.
3. To keep a copy of the sealed audit log, turn on Export the sealed audit log before removing Outbound and click Choose Export Folder…. Outbound exports the log there and checks the copy first. “If export or verification fails, no data will be deleted.”
4. Click Remove Outbound… and confirm. The confirmation reads: “The filter and background agent will be removed, then cleanup will delete the reviewed paths for every local user and the system. Outbound will quit before this user’s files are deleted. Other users’ keychain items and Spotlight indexes are kept. This cannot be undone.”

A small cleanup helper that comes with Outbound does the deleting, because the app itself can’t reach other users’ folders. If macOS hasn’t allowed it yet, Outbound says: “Approve Outbound’s cleanup helper in System Settings › General › Login Items & Extensions, then try removal again. Administrator approval is required for other users’ data.” Each removal asks for an administrator’s name and password.

When cleanup finishes, a checklist shows each path that was removed and any that needs attention, with a way to try again.

Where your data lives, and what is deleted

When you choose to delete data, removal includes:

• The app group container ~/Library/Group Containers/5GS535L4GD.com.outboundfirewall.outbound/, including your rules file rules.json, settings.json, review.json, the audit/, Locations/ and Snapshots/ folders, and the analytics database beside them.
• ~/Library/Application Support/com.outboundfirewall.outbound/, where connection history is kept.
• The caches, preference files and saved window state of both the app and the agent, under ~/Library/Caches/, ~/Library/Preferences/ and ~/Library/Saved Application State/.
• Outbound’s DNS files in ~/Library/Application Support/Outbound/DNS/, along with its HTTP storage, app containers and application scripts listed in Review every cleanup path.
• Your saved AI provider keys, history encryption key and audit key. Your licence stays in the keychain, so reinstalling needs no key.
• Outbound’s MCP registrations in the settings of Claude, Claude Desktop, Cursor, Codex, Gemini and Copilot. Other client settings are kept.

If you use a custom rules store, review its cleanup paths before confirming. Additional files whose ownership cannot be verified are kept. Files that Outbound refuses to change are kept and listed for review. If another app saves an MCP settings file while Outbound is editing it, Outbound leaves that app’s version untouched and tries once more after the other processes settle. If that also fails, the file is listed as not removed and you can finish the removal later.

Your Agent Workspace files in ~/Library/Application Support/Outbound/Agent Workspace/ are always kept. Unknown files and folders in the surrounding Outbound folder are also kept; only its DNS folder is removed.

System-keychain DNS credentials are kept unless you also remove system data and other users’ data. Exporting the audit log alone does not delete those credentials. Other users’ login-keychain items and Spotlight indexes stay until each user removes Outbound in their own session.

These items need separate attention:

• /var/root/Library/Application Support/com.outboundfirewall.outbound.filter, the filter’s own system data, is kept unless you remove Outbound for every user. If the filter still needs a restart, its data is kept until you run removal again after restarting.
• The application bundle itself, if you did not choose Move Outbound to the Trash before quitting.

The full list of paths is in Where Outbound keeps its data.

If removal is interrupted

If you log out or removal otherwise stops before finishing, Outbound shows what remains the next time you open it. In Settings › General › Remove Outbound, choose Review and Retry Data Removal…, review the remaining paths and confirm to finish removal. Files kept for manual review are listed separately from a completed deletion.

The dry-run command

The command line tool can list what removal would do without changing anything:

outboundctl uninstall --dry-run

The output summarises the removal steps, lists the data paths and MCP settings files, explains which keychain items are deleted or kept, and notes that user cleanup runs after Outbound quits. It also lists the retained system data path and reminds you to move the application bundle to the Trash.

Add --all-users to see the list an administrator removal would use, for every local account and the system:

outboundctl uninstall --dry-run --all-users

It is the same list Review every cleanup path shows in Settings. Nothing is changed either way; removal itself runs only from Outbound’s Settings. Anything else prints: “Use uninstall –dry-run [–all-users]; use Outbound Settings for removal.”

If the Mac must stay filtered

Removing Outbound turns filtering off. On a managed Mac, your administrator may have locked rule editing, which also disables the Remove Outbound button; see Deploying with MDM.