You may want want to remove Soundflower by Rogue Amoeba for some reason or another (upgrade?). For me, I noticed my FocusRite Scarlett 6i6 seems to have a driver incompatibility with some versions of SoundFlower, as would not show up in macOS However, Soundflower (for some reason or another) is viewed as required by OS X/macOS, unlike many kext files. I found this surprisingly more difficult than expected.

soundflower cannot be deleted


You're here because you've tried everything to remove SoundFlower:

  1. You tried the official installer DMG, and the removal AppleScript failed.
  2. You manually went to /System/Library/Extensions and found that you received the error "Soundflower.kext" can't be modified or deleted because it's required by OS X.
  3. Tried sudo rm-ing the damned file to find out its a directory and sudo rm -r doesn't work either and returns an Operation not permitted.
  4. Tried an app zapping app
  5. You tried Kext signing disabling by plugging in boot args and the first three things still didn't work...

I do have a solution and its not as practical but boot your Mac on another volume OR boot your Mac into Target Disk mode

Launch OS X on your other drive or plug your Mac into your secondary computer

Locate the soundflower.kext in /System/Library/Extensions and drag it to the trash

Try deleting, if your Mac complains, do the following:

  1. Launch the terminal (its located under Applications/utilities)
  2. Type in the following:
    Sudo rm -r
    Note: the trailing space is important
  3. Drag the icon of the kext into the terminal window, it should fill out the path to the kext file.
  4. Hit return, your Mac will prompt you for the admin password (this will be the admin password for the drive/computer you are currently booted from, not the password for the drive you are connected to)
  5. Hit return, it should delete now without any hitches
  6. Reboot your Mac as normal.