Can't Remove Sophos Home

[mikethebook]

I don't know how to remove the free Sophos Home antivirus software I have on my Mac. Using Remove Sophos Home which is located in Applications, I just come up with an error message. And if i try and install another version of Sophos over the existing one, I also get an error message. Manually uninstalling looks way too complicated and I wonder whether I can uninstall sufficient files that another antivirus can be installed without detecting traces of Sophos. I'm almost contemplating a clean install but I'd rather not have to go that far.

 

[keysofanxiety]

Try drag it from the Applications folder into AppCleaner: https://freemacsoft.net/appcleaner/

Select all associated files that were detected. Any luck?

 

[mikethebook]

No, that's exactly what I did after which I used EasyFind to locate other Sophos files but there were still so many and all attempts to install another antivirus failed.

 

[circatee]

Hmm, try restarting the Mac, and trying again (AppCleaner)...

 

[chrfr]

I don't know how to remove the free Sophos Home antivirus software I have on my Mac. Using Remove Sophos Home which is located in Applications, I just come up with an error message. And if i try and install another version of Sophos over the existing one, I also get an error message. Manually uninstalling looks way too complicated and I wonder whether I can uninstall sufficient files that another antivirus can be installed without detecting traces of Sophos. I'm almost contemplating a clean install but I'd rather not have to go that far.

What are the error messages you’re getting?

 

[mikethebook]

I tried rebooting but with no success. Here's the message when i tried to uninstall. The other was similar.

 

[Weaselboy]

Try rebooting while holding the shift key to start in safe mode. That stops all startup and launch items from running.

Then look in all these folders for anything that might be related to Sophos and delete it. Restart afterwards.

~/Library/LaunchAgents (~ is your users folder)
/Library/LaunchAgents
/Library/LaunchDaemons
/Library/StartupItems
/Library/Extensions
/System/Library/Extensions/

 

[mikethebook]

Thanks. Sounds good. I'll try that.

 

[circatee]

Failing the above, another idea:
- reinstall Sophos
- then uninstall it again

With the reinstall, it should install all 'missing' files and such. Thus hoping the uninstall works properly the next time.

 

[mikethebook]

Thanks but it won't install either . . . though I guess it might once I've uninstalled most of the stuff. Something to try anyway. Cheers.

 

[mikethebook]

Thanks, guys! I managed to uninstall it.

 

[circatee]

Brilliant, but share how you did it

Thanks, guys! I managed to uninstall it.

 

[mikethebook]

Sorry. After using AppCleaner to remove the main items, I used EasyFinder to find every other Sophos item and individually removed all I could apart from the private/ files. After rebooting i found I could install another antivirus app with no problem.