How to get rid of McAfee pop up notifications on my MacBook Pro?

Generally, this works.

A site you visited added itself to notifications in Safari. Everything you're seeing is nothing but a scam.

Open Safari's preferences. Click on the Websites tab and then scroll down to Notifications. Clear any entries in the right hand window. You might find something similar in the Pop-up Windows heading below that. Block any you don't recognize.

Then if you want, uncheck the box below as shown here.

I personally can't think of any reason why I would ever want any website to push notices to me.

Changing the notifications in Safari will get rid on some of the POP UPS, however what often happens is down to the culprit downloading a LAUNCH AGENT on to your MAC.

This is basically a script which is activated on start up to repeatedly launch the Pop, here is an example:

So what to do:

At the top of the screen use the GO dropdown menu, and select GO TO FOLDER.

Go the the /Libraries/Launch Agents/ folder

In here you will find the culprit usually referencing McAfee, so simply place in trash & delete.

Hope this helps.

I found that some (bad actor pretending to be McAfee) website had managed to substitute an image of the System Preferences (gear) icon for its actual identity in the Safari/Websites/notifications listing.

Thank you. I have had this notification pop up a few times and i have done what you have said however i am still concerned about this. Is this something to worry about or will this stop it? Thank you again.

MrsMike921 wrote:

How to get rid of McAfee pop up notifications?

Stop the annoying Notifications by reviewing Customize website notifications in Safari on Mac - Apple Support.

I don't remember installing it, or if I did, I uninstalled it ages ago and now suddenly there the notifications are again. Every post I've seen tells you to go to Applications and use the uninstaller...but what do you do when you can't see the McAfee application anywhere and have no installer?

Apparently, you granted one or more websites the authority to harass you with annoying Notifications. When confronted with an offer to do that, your automatic, reflexive reply ought to be "just say no." Saying NO to scams is your first line of defense. NO stops the threat before it can even arise.

Excerpted from Effective defenses against malware and other threats - Apple Community:

Beware spontaneously appearing, unsolicited popups demanding immediate action. Think before you click.

• ...
• If you encounter a website, popup, text message, email, or phone call alleging your Mac is infested with some ick or that you need to take immediate action lest dire circumstances ensue, it is 100% fraudulent. Ignore it. Read Avoid phishing emails, fake 'virus' alerts, phony support calls, and other scams.
• The same goes for website Notifications — attention-getting banners that appear at the top right corner of your screen. Safari gives you a great degree of control over them: Customize website notifications in Safari on Mac. Most of those Notifications are simply annoying, but some are intended to frighten and deceive you into installing something nefarious.

The same issue with the "McAfee..." pop-ups appearing for about 5-10 seconds every minute or so was also being experienced. The issue was finally tracked down to Safari's Settings/Website seeing the websites listed. I eliminated them one-by-one until the "McAfee..." pop-ups were not appearing. It was the "Notifications" website item that was the culprit. After that "Notifications" website was removed, the annoying pop-ups were completely gone. Just for good measure, all of the remaining websites listed were also removed. The checked box for "Allow websites to ask permission to send notifications" was also unchecked.

had managed to substitute an image of the System Preferences (gear) icon for its actual identity in the Safari/Websites/notifications listing.

It would be interesting to know which site is doing that. This is at least the third topic I've seen here in less than a week where the fake notifications were using Apple's System Preferences/Settings icon.

The images accompanying those deceptive Notifications are easily copied and used for illicit purposes. Most scams work that way, in an effort to lend an air of legitimacy: "it looks like something official, so it must be."

Unfortunately you have to develop your "street smarts" to protect yourself these days. Phony "tech support" / "ransomware" popups and web pages illustrates a few similar examples.

Oh you'd be surprised at how powerful (and deceitful) these 'companies' can be. When it pops up, it does seem somewhat alarming causing all sorts of scenarios to leap into our fear theatre. It will, most definitely be something you clicked on very recently. There is no malware, it is a lie. I imagine you've sorted your issue out? If not, here's the solution (which has been posted before, but you can't have too much of a good thing:

Click :

Safari

Preferences

From topbar options in preferences window, select:

websites

From left menu, scroll to:

Notifications

in the right hand box, you'll see titled "these websites have asked permission to show alerts in notification centre"

which they most certainly have not...

You'll see the offending McAfee (or whatever) in this box - to the right of this click where it says "allow" and change it to "deny"

Websites that attract these scammers are typically YouTube online downloaders, driver websites, free online film websites, free football websites (I've even seen that oh so repectable high street chemist "BOOTS" advertise there too. What does that say about their integrity?

Scam artists figured out how to leverage Safari Notifications so we can only expect these annoyances to accelerate at a rapid pace.

In the same manner, reflexively saying "just say no" will eventually become the commonly accepted reaction. Toss another great idea onto the ash heap of technology.

poppy118 wrote:

... Is this something to worry about or will this stop it?

It will happen again and again and again until you learn to "just say no" to websites that ask to send you Notifications.

As Kurt Lang wrote:

I personally can't think of any reason why I would ever want any website to push notices to me.

👍

Start up in Safe Mode, then follow the steps in this thread to remove the Notifications in Safari. The location is at Safari > Settings > Websites > Notifications.

Use safe mode on your Mac - Apple Support

EllieinIL wrote:

Get rid of McAfee scam pop-ups.

I agree. Get rid of them.

Follow the instructions already posted to this Discussion, or these: Stop unwanted Notifications - Apple Community. They all say the same thing.

You allowed the notification by visiting a website that asked you if you wanted to receive notifications from them. You have all the information on this page to remove the now unwanted notification.

Specifically, here the support article detailing these notifications.

Stop unwanted Notifications - Apple Community

Tisa6971 wrote:

How do you get rid of Mcafee notifications when you have deleted the app

Stop unwanted Notifications - Apple Community describes what you need to do.

I realize threads like this tend to grow to the point of becoming cumbersome to navigate, so it's probably easier to simply click that link in the email you're reading now — even though it's generally not a good idea to click links in an email.