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How do I uninstall Adobe Flash from my Macintosh?

I'm sick of Flash eating up all my resources when I'm on a page that includes some Flash content and want to just completely remove it from my Mac OS X system. Is that possible, and if so, how do I remove Flash from my MacBook Pro?


Dave's Answer:

Is there any software on the Internet that's more controversial than Adobe Flash? I don't think so. Apple's said it's too slow, so Flash isn't supported on iPads and iPhones, for example. A market slice that encompasses over 25-million devices. That's a lot, however you rationalize it.

Then again, I've also seen some amazing sites written in Flash and certainly there are some very cool 3D animations too. You've seen them, I'm sure. For one thing, most of the current theatrical release sites are written in Flash. You can tell, they don't work on the iPad!

Anyway!

To remove Adobe Flash, your best bet is to simply download and install the Adobe Flash Uninstaller for Mac.

Once it's downloaded, you'll see the Uninstaller show up on its own virtual drive:

uninstall remove flash mac 1

Double click to launch the app.

uninstall remove flash mac 2

No, really, it's good. Click on "Open" to proceed.

uninstall remove flash mac 3

That looks good. But it's a bit more confusing than you may expect. Click on "UNINSTALL" to proceed and you'll need to enter your administrative password:

uninstall remove flash mac 4

Next up, the Adobe Flash Uninstaller for Mac will tell you what's stopping it from proceeding:

uninstall remove flash mac 5

What makes this confusing is that the helper app "PluginProcess" isn't one you can actually kill because it's not a user-level process in the first place. To proceed, you need to quit your Web browser (I recommend you switch to it and quit it normally, rather than using the "Force Close All", which is a bit aggressive and can cause you to lose some of your most recent work or changes).

Now the warning gets even more weird:

uninstall remove flash mac 6

My experience was that if I just waited a minute or so, the process died without any intervention, probably because it's actually a helper app for Safari. Don't want to wait? Click on "Force Close All" after all.

Once you can proceed, it'll automatically move to the next step:

uninstall remove flash mac 7

And after a minute or three, you'll get:

uninstall remove flash mac 8

Done. That's it.

Want to check that it worked correctly? Simply go to the About Flash page at Adobe. What you should see is the following:

uninstall remove flash mac 9

Key to see here is "Missing Plug-in" on the right.

Deleting or uninstalling simply so you can reinstall and try to fix some Flash hiccups? Yeah, done that too. Grab the latest version from Adobe at Get Flash! and installation is as easy as one, two three. Or it should be. :-)


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Categorized: Mac OS X Help   (Article 10094, Written by )
Tagged: adobe flash, delete flash, flash ipad, flash iphone, remove flash, uninstall flash
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Reader Comments To Date: 3

Dan said, on October 6, 2011 12:04 PM:

If Apple do not install Flash on iPod/iPhone it is just because they don't want us to run free applications created in Flash without passing by iTune. In other terms, Applications that they do not control the origin (and % of sales).

I am a Mac, iPod Touch user but I do not agree with Apple on this.

Flash is a wonderful and useful application.

Cory McLaughlin said, on October 10, 2011 11:18 AM:

You could also try "click-to-flash"....it disables flash unless you click to enable it. I just started using it and it works very well. It sped up the loading of pages and utilizes less system resources.

himani said, on March 19, 2013 6:48 AM:

Hey Dave,

Thanks a lot for the detailed uninstallation procedure, I was having a tough time trying to do this on my own:)

Starbucks coffee cup I do have a lot to say, and questions of my own for that matter, but first I'd like to say thank you, Dave, for all your helpful information by buying you a cup of coffee!

I do have a comment, now that you mention it!











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