Script to check if all remnants of VMware Fusion are gone from your Mac

Technogeezer — Sun, 08 Oct 2023 19:32:11 GMT

The documented method of removing Fusion from a Mac only removes the Fusion application. There are other files that will remain on the system that sometimes can cause issues when upgrading or re-installing Fusion.

There is a VMware KB article that discusses how to manually remove these Fusion files from your Mac: https://kb.vmware.com/s/article/1017838

But what if you want to run a quick check to see if any of these files are still there?

The script is_fusion_installed.sh (zipped and attached to this article) is based on the above KB article and provides a quick way to tell if any of the Fusion files are still remaining on your Mac.

The script:

does not require admin privileges
does not locate any virtual machines you have installed
does not touch any of your virtual machines
does not delete any files (sorry, you'll need to do that yourself)

Instructions:

Download the attached zip file
Extract the file (either using the command line unzip utility or the macOS Archive Utility). The script (is_fusion_installed.sh) should be extracted.
In a Finder window, find the script.
Open a Terminal window, and drag the script from the Finder window into the Terminal window,
Type return in the Terminal window and the script will execute.

You should see something like this if you have any Fusion files installed (in this example, I have Fusion fully installed)

% /xxxxxx/is_fusion_installed.sh

This script checks to see if files belonging to VMware Fusion are installed
using information from VMware KB article https://kb.vmware.com/s/article/1017838

Checking for VMware Fusion application

[WARNING] VMware Fusion application still exists

Checking for other Fusion files...

[WARNING] Fusion folder "/Library/Application Support/VMware/VMware Fusion" still exists
[WARNING] Fusion file "/Library/Application Support/VMware/Usbarb.rules" still exists
[WARNING] Fusion folder "/Library/Preferences/VMware Fusion" still exists
[WARNING] Fusion folder "~/Library/Application Support/VMware Fusion" (full path "/Users/xxxxxx/Library/Application Support/VMware Fusion") still exists
[WARNING] Fusion folder "~/Library/Caches/com.vmware.fusion" (full path "/Users/xxxxx/Library/Caches/com.vmware.fusion") still exists
[WARNING] Fusion folder "~/Library/Preferences/VMware Fusion" (full path "/Users/xxxxxx/Library/Preferences/VMware Fusion") still exists
[WARNING] Fusion file "~/Library/Preferences/com.vmware.fusion.plist" (full path "/Users/xxxxxx/Library/Preferences/com.vmware.fusion.plist") still exists
[WARNING] Fusion file "~/Library/Preferences/com.vmware.fusionStartMenu.plist" (full path "/Users/xxxxxx/Library/Preferences/com.vmware.fusionStartMenu.plist") still exists

Your Mac has files from a Fusion installation.
Please delete them manually to clean your Mac of all traces of Fusion

article Script to check if all remnants of VMware Fusion are gone from your Mac in VMware Fusion Documents

Script to check if all remnants of VMware Fusion are gone from your Mac