How to delete kexts in Catalina?

Solution 1:

1. Check for System Integrity Protection (SIP)

Open Terminal and type

csrutil status 

if it says

System Integrity Protection status: enabled. 

continue to step 2. Else, skip to step 3.

2. Defeat SIP by Rebooting into macOS Recovery mode

1. Turn off Mac; turn back on while hodling ⌘ and R.
2. Open Terminal from the Utilities menu.
3. Type csrutil disable
4. Reboot (reboot)

3. Unload, then delete kext

In Terminal,

1. Unload Extension

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

2. Delete Extension

sudo mount -rw / # mount root as RW
sudo rm -rf /System/Library/Extensions/AppleThunderboltNHI.kext 

4. Re-enable SIP (if turned off)

Follow the steps for 2. except type csrutil enable on step 2.3.

Solution 2:

For Mac OS Big Sur

1. Reboot in rescue mode (reboot while "Cmd + R")

2. Utilities -> Terminal

3. csrutil disable

4. csrutil authenticated-root disable

5. mount -uw /Volumes/[MacOS ]

6. delete (or rename, or move elsewhere) the AppleThunderboltNHI.kext directory (I've moved all thunderbolt kext directories since I have no needs about this interface, but I think it works only by disabling AppleThunderboltNHI)

cd /Volumes/Macos (Enter WHATEVER YOUR MACOS DRIVE NAME IS, my macOS drive name is Macos)/System/Library/Extensions

rm -rf AppleThunderboltNHI.kext

7. Remove cache

rm -rf /System/Library/Caches/*

9. REBUILD the extensions cache ! (new has-to-do in Big Sur...)

kmutil install -u --force --volume-root /Volumes/[MacOS ]

7. DON'T FORGET to create another system snapshot to take these modifications under account at next reboot

bless --folder /Volumes/[MacOS ]/System/Library/CoreServices --bootefi --create-snapshot

8. reboot (in rescue mode). This step may be unnecessary, not tested straight to
9. csrutil enable
10. Reboot

Solution 3:

1. Open Terminal and enter the following command:

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

2. If that fails to work, you can also just force-delete the kext using

   Use the following Terminal command to remove the kext file:

   sudo rm -rf /System/Library/Extensions/AppleThunderboltNHI.kext
   

3. Restart your MAC