How to Easily Remove Safari Extensions & Plugins

As the default browser app on Mac, Safari allows optional third party extensions and plugins to be installed for additional functions like social sharing, note taking, ad blocking, etc. Those extensions can be useful for specific purposes, yet some of them may no longer be needed at one day, or become problematic/imcompatible and cause trouble with Safari, in which cases you may need to delete them from the browser.

Today’s post will show you how to easily remove Safari extensions from your Mac.

1. Open Safari, head to the Safari menu on the top left, and choose Preferences.
2. Click on the Extensions tab in Preferences window.
3. Click on the extension you no longer want, and click on Uninstall button below.
4. Click Uninstall button again to delet the selected extension from Safari.

You can repeat the steps to remove other unneeded extensions one by one. That’s the normal way to delete Safari extensions. Yet in some cases, problematic extensions may not be loaded in the Extensions tab, or imcompatible extension refuses to remove itself. If so, you can perform the manual method to delete extensions as well.

1. Quit Safari on your Mac if it is running, and then Open Finder.
2. Hit Command + Shift + G keys together to bring up Go To Folder window.
3. Enter the following path and hit Enter key: ~/Library/Safari/Extensions/

Now you will be directed to the Safari Extensions folder, and all the installed extensions are displayed there. To delete the extension you wanna remove, just right click on it and choose Move to Trash. After that, relaunch Safari to see if it is gone.

Then how about Safari Plugins? Uninstalling plugins is a little different from deleting extensions. That kind of apps can not be directly removed from Safari Preferences settings. To delete Safari plugins, here are the detailed steps you can follow:

1. Open Finder, and choose Go to Folder… from the Go menu on the top.
2. Enter the following paths to search for unneeded pluings:
   System Level Safari plug-ins location: /Library/Internet Plug-ins/
   User level Safari plug-ins location: ~/Library/Internet Plug-ins
3. Delete the plugin(s) you no longer want to keep for Safari.

Safari crashing or freezing is often caused by problematic or imcompatible extensions and plugins. For those who don’t really need certain Safari extensions or plugins, clearing up Safari by these way could help ward off troubles with the browser.

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