Who can uninstall
The Windows agent runs as a LocalSystem service and the macOS agent runs a root guardian, so removal requires administrator rights on the device. A standard employee cannot uninstall it, and an attempt to disable protection without those rights is reported as a tamper event rather than silently succeeding. Attempts that do reach the machine (the root CA removed, the proxy configuration reverted, the interceptor killed) are recorded as high-severity, hash-chained entries in the audit trail and surface on the device row in DLP → Endpoints.Uninstall on Windows
Interactively
Settings → Apps → Installed apps → Blindsight DLP → Uninstall, or the same entry in Programs and Features. Run it as an administrator.Silently
An upgrade is not an uninstall, even though the MSI technically
removes the old product first. The installer distinguishes the two:
a major upgrade keeps enrollment, the CA, the pseudonymization vault,
the undrained event spool, the user’s sign-in, and their settings. A
real uninstall keeps none of it.
What a Windows uninstall does, in order
- Stops and deletes the
BlindsightDLPservice. - Restores the system proxy, WinHTTP proxy, proxy environment variables, browser policies, and firewall rules from the snapshot taken at install time. This runs after the service stops, so the guardian cannot re-apply the configuration it is trying to remove.
- Removes the per-machine inspection root CA from the machine trust store, matched by SHA-1 thumbprint, and deletes the on-disk CA material.
- Terminates anything still running: the desktop app, stray agent processes, and the local inspection proxy.
- Removes the
HKLMautostart value and both scheduled tasks (\Blindsight\ServiceGuard,\Blindsight\ConnectivityGuard), then the\Blindsight\task folder itself. Left behind, ServiceGuard would keep trying to start a service that no longer exists. - Deletes
%ProgramData%\Blindsightin full, including the device enrollment record and the pseudonymization vault. - Deletes
.blindsightfrom every user profile on the machine, plus the LocalSystem profile at%WINDIR%\System32\config\systemprofile\.blindsight, which is where the service’s own CA private key and log live. - Removes the program files.
Uninstall on macOS
macOS has no installer package to reverse, so removal is two steps: tear down the system changes, then delete the app.1
Revert the network changes
The agent has a root-gated teardown. It is refused without the
panic token, which is readable only by root and provisioned by IT
or your MDM at
This stops and removes the guardian LaunchDaemon so it cannot
self-heal, flushes the
/Library/Application Support/Blindsight/panic.token.pf anchor, restores /etc/pf.conf from
/etc/pf.conf.blindsight.bak, deletes
/etc/pf.anchors/dev.blindsight, kills the local inspection proxy,
clears any global proxy on every network service, reloads pf, and
disables the login item.2
Remove the app and its state
3
Remove the certificate
Open Keychain Access → login, find the Blindsight root
certificate, and delete it. Do this for every user profile that
signed in on the machine.
If the teardown fails, the manual fallback is:
Retire the device in the console
Uninstalling clears the device end. It does not remove the row.1
Revoke the device
DLP → Endpoints, find the machine, revoke it. Its enrollment
credential stops being accepted, so a copied credential file cannot
be used to impersonate the device.
2
Decide about its events
Events the device already sent stay in the workspace. They are
evidence, and retiring hardware is not a reason to lose the record.
Retention is governed by your workspace settings, not by the
device.
3
Rotate the token if the machine was lost
If the device was lost rather than decommissioned, mint a new
enrollment token and revoke the old one. See
Fleet rollout.
What you lose
Also gone from the device, and not recoverable from it:- The local event store and anything in the spool that had not yet reached the platform.
- The device’s enrollment identity. A reinstall enrols as a new device with a new row.
- Local agent logs, which is worth remembering if you are uninstalling to resolve a support case. Collect them first.
Common workflows
Decommission a laptop
Decommission a laptop
- Resolve anything you still need from the vault.
- Uninstall on the device (
msiexec /x, or the macOS teardown). - Revoke the device row in DLP → Endpoints.
- Leave its events in place. They stay as evidence.
Roll the agent back off a pilot group
Roll the agent back off a pilot group
- Point the MDM’s uninstall command at the pilot smart group.
- Watch DLP → Endpoints until every device in the group stops reporting.
- Revoke the pilot enrollment token so nothing re-enrols against it.
Reinstall after a broken install
Reinstall after a broken install
- Uninstall, which is safe to run even against a half-installed agent.
- Confirm
%ProgramData%\Blindsightis gone. Its presence is what makes a reinstall silently re-adopt the old enrollment. - Install again with
CLOUD_BASEandENROLL_TOKENpassed explicitly. - Delete the stale device row in the console. The reinstall creates a new one.
A user asks to remove it from their own machine
A user asks to remove it from their own machine
They cannot, and that is the design. Route the request to whoever
owns the endpoint policy. If the machine genuinely should not be
protected, remove it through the MDM rather than by granting local
admin rights.
See also
Installing the agent
Packages, silent install, and what it changes on the device.
Devices
Revoking a device, health, and tamper events.

