Sophos antivirus software is one of the most well known and well respected anti-malware tools for the Mac. It’s distributed under the name Sophos Home to differentiate it from the company’s tools aimed at businesses and is available in free and premium versions. If you have downloaded it to try it out and no longer want it on your Mac, here’s how to remove it.

How to uninstall Sophos antivirus from your Mac

When you install Sophos Home on your Mac, it should also put an uninstaller on your boot drive. So the first step is to find that uninstaller.

After installing Sophos Anti-Virus, go to System Preferences of the affected Mac. Click Security & Privacy. In General tab, click Allow for the blocked Sophos Kernel Extensions (kexts). Once authorized, all future Sophos kernel extensions will now be allowed, even after the uninstall. The above steps are no longer needed on a reinstall. Register for Sophos Home Free below, and you will also receive a free 30-day trial of Sophos Home Premium. After the trial, you will automatically revert to the free features if you choose not to upgrade. First Name Last Name Email Password Coupon code.

Neither of the independent antivirus testing labs whose results we normally rely on, AV-Test (in Germany) and AV-Comparatives (in Austria), had tested Sophos' Mac malware detection in their most. The Sophos Anti-Virus for Mac Home Edition is no longer supported by Sophos, as it has reached its end of life. It will no longer receive further updates, and some features may not work on. Sophos Antivirus for Mac Home Edition is a complete antivirus solution for your Mac, and it gives you the ability to review files identified as threats before they are removed.

Press Command + Space or click on the Spotlight icon in the menu bar.
Type ‘Remove Sophos Home’.
When Spotlight finds it, select it and press Return.
Click Continue when it launches.
Type in your Mac admin user name and password.
Wait for the uninstallation to complete and press Close.

If you use Sophos Home on other computers or think you might in the future, you should also remove your Mac from your Sophos Home dashboard.

Log into your Sophos Home dashboard on a web browser.
Choose the Mac from which you just uninstalled Sophos.
Press Remove, then OK, when prompted.

Delete Sophos leftovers

Sometimes the uninstaller will return an error message, which can happen because of corrupted files or remains of files from previous Sophos installs or installations of other antivirus programs. In that case, Sophos advises running a script in Terminal to remove it. However, it also advises that this method should only be attempted by advanced users. Thankfully, there is another option for the rest of us.

If you can’t find the Sophos uninstaller on your Mac, and don't want to run a script, the other way to uninstall it quickly and easily is to use CleanMyMac X. The Uninstaller module in CleanMyMac X can uninstall any app, removing all the files and folders that are scattered around your system. It can also reset other misbehaving apps so they return to the state they were in when you first installed them. This is how it works.

BTW, CleanMyMac X is notarized by Apple so it’s a perfectly safe app to use.

Install the free version CleanMyMac X by downloading it and following the instructions.
Launch it from your Applications folder.
Choose the Uninstaller module from the list on the left.
Locate the app you want to uninstall in the list in the main window.
Check the box next to the app.
Press Uninstall.

Remember, we said earlier that one of the reasons the Sophos uninstaller might fail is that there are remnants of previous installations still on your Mac. Well, CleanMyMac X can help there, too. It has a ‘Leftovers’ feature which tracks down files and folders that were left over when you removed apps previously. To see them, click on Leftovers in the middle window. You can then choose the leftovers you want to remove by selecting them and pressing Uninstall.

Antivirus For Mac

Sophos Home is a popular antivirus app for the Mac. It has free and premium versions. However, there are several Mac anti-malware tools available and it may be that you no longer want Sophos on your Mac. If that’s the case, follow the steps above to uninstall it. And don’t forget to use CleanMyMac X to get rid of the remnants of files cluttering up your Mac.