Removing Rosetta 2 From Your Mac

  • Feb 21, 2023
  • 1 Min Read

At times I’m asked to confirm if one of Hedge’s apps is native for Apple silicon or if it requires Rosetta 2.

If you do a Get Info in Finder and look at Kind:

  • Application (Universal) = Apple silicon native
  • Application (Intel) = Works on both Apple silicon and Intel-based Macs, but needs Rosetta 2.

That may be enough, but if you want to be certain, you can completely remove Rosetta 2 from your Mac. Here’s how:

  1. Obtain a list of files/directories and LaunchAgents with: pkgutil --files com.apple.pkg.RosettaUpdateAuto.
  2. Save them in a way that you can access while in Recovery Mode.
  3. Boot into Recovery Mode.
  4. Open Terminal in Recovery Mode.
  5. Run csrutil disable then confirm to temporarily disable System Integrity Protection (SIP).
  6. Reboot your Mac.
  7. In Finder, delete these folders (access with Go > Go to Folder):
    • /Library/Apple/usr/share/rosetta
    • /Library/Apple/usr/libexec
  8. Reboot back to Recovery Mode, then open Terminal.
  9. Run csrutil enable and confirm to re-enable SIP.
  10. Done! ☑️

Once you remove Rosetta 2, launch an app of the Application (Intel) kind, and macOS will prompt you to install Rosetta.

🍏🖥️