How do you uninstall MySQL from Mac OS X?

Question

I accidentally installed the PowerPC version of MySQL on my Intel Mac in Snow Leopard, and it installed without a problem but of course doesn't run properly. I just didn't pay enough attention. Now when I try to install the correct x86 version it says that it can't install because a newer version is already installed. A Google query led me to perform these actions/delete these files to uninstall it:

sudo rm /usr/local/mysql
sudo rm -rf /usr/local/mysql*
sudo rm -rf /Library/StartupItems/MySQLCOM
sudo rm -rf /Library/PreferencePanes/MySQL*
rm -rf ~/Library/PreferencePanes/MySQL*
sudo rm -rf /Library/Receipts/mysql*
sudo rm -rf /Library/Receipts/MySQL*

And finally removed the line MYSQLCOM=-YES- from /etc/hostconfig

They haven't seemed to help at all. I am still receiving the same message about there being a newer version. I tried installing an even newer version (the current Beta) and it also gave me the same message about a newer version already being installed. I can't uninstall it from the Prefs Pane because I never installed the PrefPane also.

Woodruff

sudo rm -rf lines with wildcards are a little irresponsible. Especially when you cast the net widely enough to delete anything starting with the letters "My" -- MySQL doesn't have exclusive ownership over the word "My" in its title. – Feil

I'd also suggest backing up /usr/local/mysql/data first -- many people might not realize that that's where mysql keeps its data on mac. – Amorette

Answer 1

Try running also

sudo rm -rf /var/db/receipts/com.mysql.*

Mullein

also sudo rm -rf /Library/StartupItems/MySQLCOM if it exists – Expire

Answer 2

I also had entries in:

/Library/Receipts/InstallHistory.plist

that i had to delete.

Daffie

What kind of entries were these? Hopefully it was just in the older versions but I don't see anything named mysql in there. – Contrive

Answer 3

If you installed mysql through brew then we can use command to uninstall mysql.

$ brew uninstall mysql

Uninstalling /usr/local/Cellar/mysql/5.6.19...

This worked for me.

Douai

I wish... I'm removing my dmg version from 10.8 so I can install the brew version! :-) – Amplify

Also remove "export PATH="/usr/local/opt/[email protected]/bin:$PATH"" from ~/.zshrc or ~/.bash_profile or ~/.bashrc. – Saleratus

worked for me for the default MySQL 8.0.22 for Mojave – Australoid

Answer 4

ps -ax | grep mysql

*stop and kill any MySQL processes

brew remove mysql
brew cleanup

sudo rm /usr/local/mysql
sudo rm -rf /usr/local/var/mysql
sudo rm -rf /usr/local/mysql*
sudo rm ~/Library/LaunchAgents/homebrew.mxcl.mysql.plist
sudo rm -rf /Library/StartupItems/MySQLCOM
sudo rm -rf /Library/PreferencePanes/MySql*

launchctl unload -w ~/Library/LaunchAgents/homebrew.mxcl.mysql.plist

edit /etc/hostconfig and remove the line MYSQLCOM=-YES-

rm -rf ~/Library/PreferencePanes/My*    
sudo rm -rf /Library/Receipts/mysql*
sudo rm -rf /Library/Receipts/MySQL*
sudo rm -rf /private/var/db/receipts/*mysql*

*restart your computer just to ensure any MySQL processes are killed try to run mysql, it shouldn't work

Chandachandal

I had installed mysql 5.6 using brew. Doing brew remove mysql was giving me error: "Error: No such keg: /usr/local/Cellar/mysql". So I had to do brew uninstall [email protected]. Also, I had to remove "export PATH="/usr/local/opt/[email protected]/bin:$PATH"" from bash profile (~/.zshrc for my case) – Saleratus

I . runn brew remove mysql , however I got the error "No available formula or cask with the name "mysql". – Nubile

Answer 5

OS version: 10.14.6 MYSQL version: 8.0.14

Goto System preferences -> MYSQL

Stop MySQL server

One option will be shown here to uninstall MYSQL 8 after stopping Mysql server

Hughs

Answer 6

Aside from the long list of remove commands in your question, which seems quite comprehensive in my recent experience of exactly this issue, I found mysql.sock running in /private/var and removed that. I used

find / -name mysql -print 2> /dev/null

...to find anything that looked like a mysql directory or file and removed most of what came up (aside from Perl/Python access modules). You may also need to check that the daemon is not still running using Activity Monitor (or at the command line using ps -A). I found that mysqld was still running even after deleting the files.

Umberto

You can (and in this case, probably should) use -iname if your find supports it to perform a case-insensitive search – Enunciation

Answer 7

I also had a config file at /etc/my.cnf that I needed to delete on my Mac OS X Snow Leopard install

Karankaras

Answer 8

It might be overkill but your MySQL command history can also be wiped from:

~/.mysql_history

Utterance

Answer 9

You need to identify where MySQL was installed to before attempting to delete it.

I always use the Hivelogic guide to installing under Mac OS X which builds MySQL from source. When setting up the build you can specify a directory under which to install MySQL with the --prefix parameter. You should make sure the directory does not exist and attempt to install from source.

./configure --prefix=/usr/local/mysql --with-extra-charsets=complex \
--enable-thread-safe-client --enable-local-infile --enable-shared \
--with-plugins=innobase

Candida

Old answer, I know, but it came up in a review task. Maybe you should add how to identify where mysql was installed, not just how to install it. As it is, it doesn't really answer the question. – Zehe

Answer 10

You should also check /var/db/receipts and remove all entries that contain com.mysql.*

Using sudo rm -rf /var/db/receipts/com.mysql.* didn't work for me. I had to go into var/db/receipts and delete each one seperately.

Adamsun

Answer 11

I also found

/Library/LaunchDaemons/com.oracle.oss.mysql.mysqld.plist

after using all of the other answers here to uninstall MySQL Community Server 8.0.15 from OS X 10.10.

Ezmeralda

Answer 12

For me, I had installed MariaDB years ago using homebrew. Correct uninstall procedure was: brew uninstall mariadb.

Hypnoanalysis

Answer 13

This did the job for me:

brew uninstall mysql

Burgee

Answer 14

brew uninstall --force mysql@<version_no>

exmample

brew uninstall --force [email protected]

to get version check cd /usr/local/Cellar

Yovonnda

Answer 15

Remove MySQL completely

Open the Terminal

Use mysqldump to backup your databases

Check for MySQL processes with:

ps -ax | grep mysql

Stop and kill any MySQL processes

Analyze MySQL on HomeBrew:

brew remove mysql
brew cleanup

Remove files:

sudo rm /usr/local/mysql
sudo rm -rf /usr/local/var/mysql
sudo rm -rf /usr/local/mysql*
sudo rm ~/Library/LaunchAgents/homebrew.mxcl.mysql.plist
sudo rm -rf /Library/StartupItems/MySQLCOM
sudo rm -rf /Library/PreferencePanes/My*

Unload previous MySQL Auto-Login:

launchctl unload -w ~/Library/LaunchAgents/homebrew.mxcl.mysql.plist

Remove previous MySQL Configuration:

subl /etc/hostconfig` 
# Remove the line MYSQLCOM=-YES-

Remove previous MySQL Preferences:

rm -rf ~/Library/PreferencePanes/My*
sudo rm -rf /Library/Receipts/mysql*
sudo rm -rf /Library/Receipts/MySQL*
sudo rm -rf /private/var/db/receipts/*mysql*

Restart your computer just to ensure any MySQL processes are killed

Try to run mysql, it shouldn't work

Sutphin

copied from gist.github.com/vitorbritto/0555879fe4414d18569d – Dorotheadorothee

Answer 16

sudo find / | grep -i mysql

This worked like a charm for me. Just went through the list and ensured that anything MySQL related was deleted.

Coccyx

This ended up being very bad for me, as it found things like the MySQL images that Coda 2 used, as well as some files in Adobe Bridge. – Tempi

faster: sudo find / -iname "*mysql*" – Saxen

This is very bad suggestion. I have ruined my system. It has removed any file that had mysql in their name. It has even corrupted sequel pro and other softwares. Now even though reinstall mysql but I get errors when I try to connect with sequel pro. Please report this answer and have it removed before many more people ruin their computer. And please suggest me what should I do now? – Sobriety