Recently I’ve had to remove a version of MySQL 5.5 from my Macbook so that I could go back to a 5.1 version. However it appears that there isn’t an automatic way to remove and install an older version. A few google searches revealed a bulk of the removal process, but additional searching revealed a few more steps.

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sudo rm /usr/local/mysql</br>
sudo rm -rf /usr/local/mysql*</br>
sudo rm -rf /Library/StartupItems/MySQLCOM</br>
sudo rm -rf /Library/PreferencePanes/My*</br>
rm -rf ~/Library/PreferencePanes/My*</br>
sudo rm -rf /Library/Receipts/mysql*</br>
sudo rm -rf /Library/Receipts/MySQL*</br>
sudo rm -rf /var/db/receipts/com.mysql.*</br>

vim /etc/hostconfig # and remove the line MYSQLCOM=-YES-

9/28/2011 - added comment on last line. Thanks Justin for pointing this out!

Web references:

• http://stackoverflow.com/questions/1436425/how-do-you-uninstall-mysql-from-mac-os-x
• http://akrabat.com/computing/uninstalling-mysql-on-mac-os-x-leopard/