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Where are USB serial drivers installed on the Mac? How can I check which drivers are installed, and how do I remove a driver?

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    As far as I know... all the drivers are stored in System/Library/Extensions... but can't really comment to the rest, so only making this a comment.
    – Charlie74
    Jan 6, 2016 at 3:00

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Hardware Drivers in OS X are typically in the form of Kernel Extensions and the primary location is /System/Library/Extensions/ however they can also be within an Application Bundle. You can use kextunload to unload a Kernel extension. To see what Kernel extensions are loaded use the kextstat command in a Terminal.

Have a look at the manual page KEXTUNLOAD(8) and also the Unloading a Kernel Extension with kextunload section in How to Load & Unload Kernel Extensions in OS X, excerpt show below.

Unloading a Kernel Extension with kextunload

Unloading a kernel extension from OS X is basically the exact same as loading a kext, except you’ll use the kextunload utility with sudo as follows:

sudo kextunload -b com.apple.driver.ExampleBundle

Or by pointing directly to the kernel extensions path:

sudo kextunload /System/Library/Extensions/ThirdPartyMystery.kext

Again, you can confirm the kernel extension has been unloaded by using kextstat and grep, where it should return nothing.

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  • How can I find if a software driver installed on my system? I am curious to know how a software finds an ODBC driver it needs to connect to a DB.
    – KalC
    Feb 8, 2018 at 18:52
  • @KalC, This answer was meant more so to address the specifics if the question being about USB and unloading. If this answer, as is, is not adequate to address your specific question, then you should continue to search and or if you can't find an answer specific to your question, then post your question as a new question not as a comment.
    – user3439894
    Feb 8, 2018 at 19:08
  • I have posted a new question specifically to what I am looking. This thread was the closest to what I am looking for.
    – KalC
    Feb 8, 2018 at 19:37

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