python setup.py uninstall

I have installed a python package with python setup.py install.

How do I uninstall it?

Solution 1:

Note: Avoid using python setup.py install use pip install .

You need to remove all files manually, and also undo any other stuff that installation did manually.

If you don't know the list of all files, you can reinstall it with the --record option, and take a look at the list this produces.

To record a list of installed files, you can use:

python setup.py install --record files.txt

Once you want to uninstall you can use xargs to do the removal:

xargs rm -rf < files.txt

Or if you're running Windows, use Powershell:

Get-Content files.txt | ForEach-Object {Remove-Item $_ -Recurse -Force}

Then delete also the containing directory, e.g. /Library/Frameworks/Python.framework/Versions/3.7/lib/python3.7/site-packages/my_module-0.1.egg/ on macOS. It has no files, but Python will still import an empty module:

>>> import my_module
>>> my_module.__file__
None

Once deleted, Python shows:

>>> import my_module
Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "<stdin>", line 1, in <module>
ModuleNotFoundError: No module named 'my_module'

Solution 2:

For me, the following mostly works:

have pip installed, e.g.:

$ easy_install pip

Check, how is your installed package named from pip point of view:

$ pip freeze

This shall list names of all packages, you have installed (and which were detected by pip). The name can be sometime long, then use just the name of the package being shown at the and after #egg=. You can also in most cases ignore the version part (whatever follows == or -).

Then uninstall the package:

$ pip uninstall package.name.you.have.found

If it asks for confirmation about removing the package, then you are lucky guy and it will be removed.

pip shall detect all packages, which were installed by pip. It shall also detect most of the packages installed via easy_install or setup.py, but this may in some rare cases fail.

Here is real sample from my local test with package named ttr.rdstmc on MS Windows.

$ pip freeze |grep ttr
ttr.aws.s3==0.1.1dev
ttr.aws.utils.s3==0.3.0
ttr.utcutils==0.1.1dev

$ python setup.py develop
.....
.....
Finished processing dependencies for ttr.rdstmc==0.0.1dev

$ pip freeze |grep ttr
ttr.aws.s3==0.1.1dev
ttr.aws.utils.s3==0.3.0
-e hg+https://[email protected]/vlcinsky/ttr.rdstmc@d61a9922920c508862602f7f39e496f7b99315f0#egg=ttr.rdstmc-dev
ttr.utcutils==0.1.1dev

$ pip uninstall ttr.rdstmc
Uninstalling ttr.rdstmc:
  c:\python27\lib\site-packages\ttr.rdstmc.egg-link
Proceed (y/n)? y
  Successfully uninstalled ttr.rdstmc

$ pip freeze |grep ttr
ttr.aws.s3==0.1.1dev
ttr.aws.utils.s3==0.3.0
ttr.utcutils==0.1.1dev

Edit 2015-05-20

All what is written above still applies, anyway, there are small modifications available now.

Install pip in python 2.7.9 and python 3.4

Recent python versions come with a package ensurepip allowing to install pip even when being offline:

$ python -m ensurepip --upgrade

On some systems (like Debian Jessie) this is not available (to prevent breaking system python installation).

Using grep or find

Examples above assume, you have grep installed. I had (at the time I had MS Windows on my machine) installed set of linux utilities (incl. grep). Alternatively, use native MS Windows find or simply ignore that filtering and find the name in a bit longer list of detected python packages.

Solution 3:

The #1 answer has problems:

• Won't work on mac.
• If a file is installed which includes spaces or other special characters, the xargs command will fail, and delete any files/directories which matched the individual words.
• the -r in rm -rf is unnecessary and at worst could delete things you don't want to.

Instead, for unix-like:

sudo python setup.py install --record files.txt
# inspect files.txt to make sure it looks ok. Then:
tr '\n' '\0' < files.txt | xargs -0 sudo rm -f --

And for windows:

python setup.py bdist_wininst
dist/foo-1.0.win32.exe

There are also unsolvable problems with uninstalling setup.py install which won't bother you in a typical case. For a more complete answer, see this wiki page:

https://ofswiki.org/wiki/Uninstalling_setup.py_install

Solution 4:

First record the files you have installed. You can repeat this command, even if you have previously run setup.py install:

python setup.py install --record files.txt

When you want to uninstall you can just:

sudo rm $(cat files.txt)

This works because the rm command takes a whitespace-seperated list of files to delete and your installation record is just such a list.

Solution 5:

Now python gives you the choice to install pip during the installation (I am on Windows, and at least python does so for Windows!). Considering you had chosen to install pip during installation of python (you don't actually have to choose because it is default), pip is already installed for you. Then, type in pip in command prompt, you should see a help come up. You can find necessary usage instructions there. E.g. pip list shows you the list of installed packages. You can use

pip uninstall package_name

to uninstall any package that you don't want anymore. Read more here (pip documentation).