Can’t uninstall Bitdefender Antivirus for Mac? Here’s what to do

1. Click on an empty area of your desktop or click the Finder icon  in the Dock. Finder is the icon that looks like a blue square with a smiley face.

2.  Next, click Go at the top left of the screen, on the menu bar, and select Go to Folder…  from the menu.

3. Type in /Library and click Go or press Enter/Return on your keyboard. The Library folder will open.

ⓘ  Note:

• If some Bitdefender files and folders we are going to mention below no longer exist on your Mac, only delete the ones still available.

• If you encounter errors while trying to delete any of these Bitdefender items, continue with the Uninstall method 2.

4. Inside the Library folder, open Application Support and delete Antivirus for Mac and Bitdefender, highlighted in the image below.

5. Go back to the Library folder and delete the Bitdefender folder.

6. While still inside the Library folder, open the Extensions folder and delete these three files: FileProtect.kext, SelfProtect.kext and TMProtection.kext.

7. Next, open the Applications folder and delete Antivirus for Mac and Bitdefender folder.

That’s it! You’ve successfully removed Bitdefender Antivirus for Mac.

ⓘ  Note: The steps below work only on macOS Catalina 10.15 and older macOS versions. Find out which macOS your Mac is using. On Big Sur 11.5 and more recent macOS versions, please use the first uninstall method.

If you have a backup disk, we recommend you make a fresh backup before proceeding any further. Check out this article for more details – How to back up your Mac with Time Machine

VIDEO – How to remove Bitdefender Antivirus for Mac when it fails to uninstall

1. Restart your Mac and press Command (⌘)-R during the restart until you see the Apple logo. In some cases, you will be prompted to choose the language. Choose your desired language and click on the arrow at the bottom to continue.

2. The Utilities window will be displayed (this example is for Sierra OS, but it looks very similar to the previous OS versions).

3. Select Disk Utility and then click on Continue

4. Select your startup disk (in the example Macintosh HD):

• If it’s already mounted, you will see the Unmount option. In this case, proceed with step 5.
• If it’s not mounted, click on Mount. If it’s locked by FileVault, you will be prompted for your administrator password to unlock it. Enter the same password you use at Mac login.

5. Quit Disk Utility to return to the Utilities window: click on Disk Utility in the menu bar (next to the Apple logo) and select Quit Disk Utility or simply close the window.

6. In the menu bar click on Utilities and select Terminal.

7. In the Terminal window type the following set of commands.

ⓘ  Warning: Make sure you type the commands exactly as you see them below. Failure to do so may result in data loss.

Press Return/Enter on your keyboard after entering each command line:

That’s it! Bitdefender Antivirus for Mac has been successfully removed. You can now restart macOS in normal mode. To do that, click on the Apple logo in the top menu bar and choose Restart.

Below you can find detailed information about what each command in the set does.

a. First, we want to use the “LS” command from LIST (you can use lower letters for this command, as you can see in the screenshots below) to make sure the startup disk (Macintosh HD) is mounted. So, we type (there is a space after the “ls” command):

LS /Volumes/ 

and press Return. This will display all the mounted volumes like in the picture below. If you see your startup disk (Macintosh HD) you may continue with step b). Otherwise, it is possible that you haven’t mounted the startup disk. In this case, quit the Terminal window, go back to Disk Utility and mount the disk. You may also run a First Aid to fix any potential disk errors.

Quick Tip! Type the first characters of the argument (in this case, /Volumes/) and then press the TAB key on your keyboard. This will auto-complete the name of the argument. For the example above type ls /Vol and then press TAB.

b. Now let’s see if we have the SelfProtect.kext extension in the Extensions folder. We will use the same “LS”  command.

ⓘ  Note: You can notice that after Macintosh we put a back slash “\” and a space followed by HD. This is because the startup disk name has two words. If the startup disk name had one word, we would use the forward slash “/” and no spaces. For example, if the name was MacintoshHD, the command would be: cd /Volumes/MacintoshHD/Library/Extensions/

cd /Volumes/Macintosh\ HD/Library/Extensions/

LS

ⓘ  Note: Remember to use the auto-complete function (TAB key) for each directory name in the command string. It will help you avoid typos.

c. If SelfProtect.kext is present, the next step is to delete it. To do that we will use the “rm -rf” command (from REMOVE). We will enter the command below:

rm –rf SelfProtect.kext

Now let’s check if the file was deleted. Use the command below.

LS

ⓘ  Quick Tip! Use the Up arrow to use the previous command (navigate through the history of commands) and the Down arrow if you wish to go back to the latest commands. Use the Left and Right arrows to navigate to the left or right of the command line.

d. The SelfProtect extension was removed, and we can move to the next step: check if you have the Bitdefender folder and remove it. Let’s try all the commands at once (you still have to press Return/Enter after each one).

cd /Volumes/Macintosh\ HD/Library/

LS

rm –rf Bitdefender

LS

e. The Bitdefender folder has been removed. You can now restart in normal mode. To do that, click on the Apple logo in the menu bar and select Restart.