Uninstall Akamai Download Manager and com.akamai.client.plist

Oct 7, 2010 - 19 Comments

If you’ve downloaded something from Adobe recently you may have unintentionally installed Akamai Download Manager. Akamai is a helpful content delivery network (at least for the web), but for whatever reason the Akamai Download Manager that is used and packaged with Adobe software often goes haywire on a Mac with usage spikes and random internet connection attempts that can really slow things down.

You can typically identify this by looking in the Console log for things like:
9/30/10 6:24:03 AM com.apple.launchd.peruser.50186 (com.akamai.client.plist) Throttling respawn: Will start in 10 seconds
9/30/10 6:24:13 AM com.apple.launchd.peruser.50186 (com.akamai.client.plist12013) Bug: launchd_core_logic.c:4103 (23932):13
9/30/10 6:24:13 AM com.apple.launchd.peruser.50186 (com.akamai.client.plist12013) posix_spawn("/Applications/Akamai/loader.pl", ...): No such file or directory
9/30/10 6:24:13 AM com.apple.launchd.peruser.50186 (com.akamai.client.plist12013) Exited with exit code: 1

The simplest way to stop Akamai Download Manager and anything labeled as ‘com.akamai.client.plist’ in your Console logs is to remove the plist file and application. The application can be installed in different places, so try running this command in the Terminal first:
/Applications/Akamai/admintool uninstall -force
Hopefully this will uninstall everything. If that doesn’t work, get rid of the plist files and applications yourself. The plist file is located at:
~/Library/LaunchAgents/com.akamai.client.plist
and the application is usually located at:
/Applications/Akamai Download Manager
I deleted both of these and haven’t had any problems since. Remember, if you just delete the Akamai Download Manager application, you did not remove the plist file and it will probably still load and give you headaches.

If you’re hesitant to delete the files, you can also just prevent the plist file from loading on your Mac by entering the following into the command line:
launchctl unload -w ~/Library/LaunchAgents/com.akamai.client.plist

I don’t know about anyone else but I’m always annoyed when I want to install one application and 15 additional packages come with it, which then go haywire. I remember the good old days when you’d install one application, and you’d only get one application. Adobe has become a repeat offender with installing random nonsense along with their products lately and it’s quite frustrating, I hope they adjust this policy soon.

.

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Posted by: David Mendez in Mac OS, Troubleshooting

19 Comments

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  1. AB says:

    Thanks a lot! My Mac was constantly getting the loading wheel every half hour or so, making me wait about 2 minutes before I could do anything. Then, almost without fault, it’d make Chrome crash. A quick look at the Log claimed it was “akamai” causing these crashes. Hopefully this should fix it!

  2. WGO says:

    I tried this and none of it worked. I’m wondering if anyone else had difficulties and might have a solution for me. By the way – it’s important to note that the CEO of Akamai Technologies Inc is a member of the Nat’l Security Telecom Advisory Committee – the same is true of the Twitter CEO. Also important to note: Adobe is a Dept of Defense contractor.

  3. Clifford Dann says:

    the other place to un-install it is at
    ~/Applications/Akamai/admintool uninstall -force

  4. Caitlin says:

    The exact instructions didn’t work for me, but was definitely enough to lead me to a final solution (I still had the original dmg, with the akamai installer inside…so i installed it, then found they packaged an uninstaller, and ran that…did the trick) Thank you!

  5. Jared Rypka-Hauer says:

    You can also hit Terminal and type:

    launchctl remove com.akamail.client.plist

    That does the trick just as easily…

  6. […] diese tolle Datei von Akamai überhaupt? Nach ein wenig Recherche habe ich dann hier gefunden: https://osxdaily.com/2010/10/07/uninstall-akamai-download-manager-and-com-akamai-client-plist/. Damit hat das ganze dann auch wunderbar funktioniert. Wer es also einfach loswerden will, sollte […]

  7. Jacklyn says:

    Thanks! I have thousand lines of console messages just because of this stupid akamai.
    Glad to get rid of it!

  8. ConnectAid says:

    Thanks!
    Only the /Applications/Akamai/admintool uninstall -force
    was enough!

  9. Sam says:

    Thanks. Worked fantastically.

  10. Paster says:

    I recently grabbed the Illustrator trial from Adobe’s site, and even though it auto-downloaded the akamai installer, I could just click a direct link to start downloading too.
    So basically you’re not forced to install that crappy DL manager.

  11. kevinopp says:

    i just used the uninstaller that came with the program. seemed to take everything with it…..

  12. Tomball says:

    Adobe has always done stuff like this. They’re “evil” – i.e. lazy, stupid and greedie

  13. John says:

    Adobe installs border-line spyware with it’s software nowadays, the claim is that it’s to prevent piracy and check for updates but I don’t buy it. I disabled all the auto-checking stuff because it’s ANNOYING, but still Adobe sends info out and about. Using LittleSnitch you can be doing things that are completely unrelated to the internet and Adobe apps are constantly trying to phone home and send who knows what information to Adobe! It’s obvious they’re just capturing huge amounts of usage data but the fact that it’s not opt-in disturbs me almost as much as the fact that the crapware spikes your CPU and slows down your computer in the process of reporting data.

    And yea, that Akamai Download Manager is a CPU disaster, whoever wrote that thing should be demoted.

  14. Eric says:

    Try to block it with little snitch, seems easier to me

  15. kc says:

    Good stuff! thanks for this

    • Julian Hiorns says:

      Many thanks for this posting – you’ve solved a problem that has been a long-running pain for me. Well done!

    • Jimmy says:

      Oh my God, thank you so much for posting this. I had taken my security down for a couple of hours last night to try to get my NAS media drive to go a little faster with iTunes, go figure… Lol, and it started snowballing to 10 insane hours! My Dad owns an ebay shop and used my macbook yesterday for some office work, which also included paypal. He’s a little older and has always been a pc guy and but in the past has been hit a couple times with some brutal viruses and had to shut down shop for a week or 2. We thought it was uploading passwords from the family, credit cards from customers… I still cant get it off my mac, but this is literally the first time ive sat down and breathed since midnight. The biggest problem is figuring out what the heck is going on, did we need to get a customer list out and start emailing and calling customers all over the world to tell them to cancel their cards. We figured out enough to know that this was a”mac language/ program, and it probably wouldnt effect the other 6 computers on the network. But we got the old router out and changed all those passwords and were about to head out the door to the apple store. We’ve seen that Akamai every where. I think the problem I find myself in is that I went in with Onyx like a cannonball and it keeps multiplying and should have used a scapel. I ran those prompts in terminal and its say’s they dont exist. But I mean this thing has eaten my computer alive. And it’s so completely random! Ive never heard of some this stuff. At one time there was a Steve Jobs file. Ahhh, and of course Apple has said absolutely nothing about it – and you can’t google a 60 word essay about whats going on because these scripts are just random words. Thanks for taking the time when you did, just sad to see its still hasnt been solved or brought out to the public

    • gordopro says:

      hi guys…
      you just find “akamai” in finder then you see akamai uninstall

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