How to quit or completely remove Desktop Goose on a Mac

He might appear cute at first, but the Desktop Goose can really get on your nerves after a while. He tracks footprints across your screen, clutters your desktop with stupid GIFs, and runs off with your cursor when he’s upset.

The exact method to quit or remove the goose has changed a couple of times. But if you’re fed up with that honking menace, you can find out how to quit or remove Desktop Goose from your Mac below.

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• Tips for Mac security and avoiding viruses
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What Is Desktop Goose?

In case you don’t know where it came from, Desktop Goose is a silly little app made by an indie developer called Samperson. The entire app consists of a cartoon goose that waddles across your Mac screen getting into trouble.

We all know geese are a pain, and the Desktop Goose is no exception. It tracks dirt across your screen and drags memes onto your desktop. When you close the memes, the goose grabs your cursor and waddles away with it.

If left running, Desktop Goose has been known to open enough memes to make even the most powerful MacBook Pro crash. While endearing at first, the goose quickly becomes an annoyance.

Is Desktop Goose a Computer Virus?

Nefarious as the goose is, it isn’t a computer virus. You can only get Desktop Goose on your Mac if you or someone else chose to install it. And it’s easy to quit or remove Desktop Goose from your Mac once you know how.

There’s no reason to believe the goose collects data or installs malware on your Mac. It seems totally safe, despite how frustrating it can be.

How to quit Desktop Goose on your Mac

After playing around with the Desktop Goose for a little while, you might be alarmed to find you can’t quit it like other apps. This is because the Desktop Goose doesn’t live inside a window that you can close, like other apps. It also doesn’t show up on the dock, in the menu bar, or in the task manager.

Have no fear, there are still multiple ways to quit Desktop Goose on your Mac.

1. Open the Desktop Goose app a second time

The simplest way to quit Desktop Goose on your Mac is to open the app a second time. With earlier versions of Desktop Goose, this opened multiple geese on your desktop, but now it opens a preferences window for the app instead.

If you can’t find it, look for the Desktop Goose app in your Applications or Downloads folders. Failing that, search for it using Spotlight (Cmd + Space).

From these preferences, click the button to Quit Desktop Goose.

2. Use a Terminal command

When you can’t find the Desktop Goose app to open again, you can still kill the goose using Terminal. Just make sure you type the command exactly as we’ve written it below.

Open Terminal from the Utilities folder in your Applications. Then type the following command and press Enter to quit Desktop Goose on your Mac: killall "Desktop Goose"

3. Open the quit file in the download folder

If you installed an older version of Desktop Goose on your Mac, you need to find a file called Open me to Quit Desktop Goose inside the download folder you got Desktop Goose from.

If you can’t find the original folder, search for Desktop Goose using Spotlight (Cmd + Space) or download it again from the Samperson website. You don’t need to pay again.

There’s a chance your Mac won’t let you open this file even if you can find it. Should that be the case, control-click and select Open from the pop-up menu instead to bypass your Mac’s security. Otherwise, go to System Preferences > Security & Privacy and choose to Open Anyway.

How to remove Desktop Goose on your Mac

It closing down the Desktop Goose isn’t enough to make you feel at ease, you can uninstall it as well. When you do this, it permanently removes Desktop Goose from your Mac, so you never need to worry about it again.

To uninstall any app on your Mac—Desktop Goose included—all you need to do is drag the application to the Trash. Find the Desktop Goose app in your Downloads or Applications folder, then drag it to the Trash to uninstall.

You might want to empty the Trash after you delete it, to make sure Desktop Goose is gone for good. Control-click and select Empty Trash to do so.

Learn how to uninstall any app from your Mac

Desktop Goose is a particularly tricky app to quit. But removing Desktop Goose from your Mac is as simple as removing any other app.

If you want to learn more about how to do this, check out our comprehensive guide on how to install, update, or uninstall Mac apps.

Dan Helyer( Senior Writer )

Dan is a freelance writer based in South West England.

He spent two years supervising repairs as a Genius Admin for Apple Retail and uses that knowledge to keep our troubleshooting guides up to date.

Long before that, Dan turned to Apple products from a musical background. Having owned iPods for years, he bought a MacBook to learn sound recording and production. It was using those skills that he gained a first-class Bachelor of Science in Sound Technology.