Remove Parallels’ VMs & Applications Without Parallels Installed

TL;DR: Skip to the solution.

I installed Parallels several months ago in an effort to get Windows 10 running smoothly on my Macbook Pro. Needless to say, it didn’t work out. I switched to VirtualBox several weeks ago and haven’t looked back.

After deleting the Parallels application, I noticed that Windows applications were still showing up in my Spotlight search results. This was not only annoying but also inefficient. I was constantly accidentally opening Windows applications and receiving the “Parallels Not Found” error.

After several days of this, and 10 minutes searching for an easy way to delete these applications and the VMs that were left behind,I found the two lingeringfolders that need to be deleted(even after you have deleted the Parallels application from your Applications folder.)

How to Delete Parallels VMs and Applications Without Using the Parallels OSX Application

1. Open your Documents folder and delete the “Parallels” folder. This will delete the Parallels’ VMs.
2. Locateyour root hard drive folder in Finderand delete the “Applications (Parallels)” folder. This will delete all of the Parallels-specific applications.