How to uninstall Adobe Flash Player from your Mac

Flash was an important element of the initial web navigation, used to feed various animations, forms and other interactive elements on a website for a user. It was adopted for offering more options to web developers and media creators than HTML, animated GIFs and other basic technologies of the time.

However, as browsers improved and began to process open standards like HTML5, WebGL and WebAssembly, among others, Flash has fallen by the wayside as the dominant way of providing interactivity. The increased use of the Flash Player installer for malware purposes also likely accelerated its demise.

Adobe announced in 2017 that it would halt the development and distribution of Flash Player by the end of 2020 and encourage the adoption of other open formats for content that uses Flash. At the time, Adobe cited a collaboration with Apple, Facebook, Google, Microsoft and Mozilla as the impetus behind the decision to end the life of technology.

Since that announcement, Adobe has continued to support Flash with security patches and other updates, setting its actual EOL date to December 31, 2020. Beginning January 1, 2021, Adobe would no longer support Flash Player , followed by configuring the software to block Flash the content will run from January 12th.

For end users, this largely means that Adobe no longer intends to release Flash Player updates or security patches. Since Flash can be a security risk, especially without future updates, Adobe is actively advising users to uninstall Flash Player from their computers.

Adobe even took steps to remove Flash Player download pages from its website, to prevent anyone curious to be tempted to install it in the last days of its life.

The major browser vendors are also disabling Flash Player from the EOL date. For Mac browsers, Safari disabled support for Adobe Flash in early 2020, after requiring users to explicitly activate it, while Firefox version 84.0 is the last to support Flash, and the same removal of support is on its way to Chrome and Microsoft Edge.

For iPhone and iPad users, Flash was never a problem, as iOS and iPadOS devices never supported the technology.

Flash is not being completely eliminated, however, as Adobe has provided means of support for business customers who need Flash Player for internal business systems. For the web in general, however, Flash is basically dead.

Although web browsers are removing support and it looks inert, there is still some work to be done to get rid of the last remnants of it from your Mac. Flash Player is a separate application that needs to be uninstalled before you can seriously consider your Mac without Flash.

The Adobe Flash Player uninstaller running on macOS.

1. Open the uninstaller.
2. Click UninstallI.
3. Close all browsers if any are open, either manually or by clicking on each browser name in the uninstaller dialog box. Click Try again if necessary.
4. Wait for the uninstaller to complete. Click Done.
5. Open Finder, then locate and delete the directory / Library / Preferences / Macromedia / Flash Player
6. Staying in the Finder, locate and delete the directory / Library / Caches / Adobe / Flash Player
7. Open a browser at this link to check it has been uninstalled.

1. Open the uninstaller.
2. If necessary, authenticate with your Mac.
3. Click Continue.
4. Once completed, the uninstaller will close automatically.
5. Open a browser at this link to check it has been uninstalled.