How to completely remove my Emacs?

Question

I downloaded Emacs source files, and installed it using make. After installing Emacs successfully, I manually removed the downloaded source files to save disk space. Now I want to remove Emacs and I tried to use sudo apt-get purge emacs. But it says Emacs has not been installed and will not be removed. But I can run Emacs by typing emacs in the terminal. Also the command which emacs shows the result /usr/local/bin/emacs.

Why can't apt-get detect it? How can I remove Emacs completely in this situation? My OS is Ubuntu 12.04, and my Emacs version is 24.3.1.

score 14 · Answer 1 · edited Oct 04 '21 at 16:17

14

It is not enough to

sudo apt-get remove emacs

You have to do

sudo apt-get remove emacs emacs23 emacs24 emacs25 emacs26 \
                    emacs-bin-common emacs-common emacs-el

Then

locate emacs

edited Oct 04 '21 at 16:17

alper

224

answered Apr 23 '14 at 19:21

Hartmut Pfarr

626

1
emacs24 too

deadfish

Nov 07 '18 at 21:40

I am not sure this would help or apply to the OP. It looks like he compiled and installed from source. – haziz Dec 30 '19 at 00:33

Jaehyun Yeom · Answer 2 · 2015-07-16T03:11:00.920

You haven't installed Emacs with the package manager. As you have installed it from source tarball, try this way.

Check emacs version.
```
$ emacs --version
```
Download the same emacs version you have installed in the past.
```
$ wget https://ftp.gnu.org/gnu/emacs/emacs-$VERSION.tar.xz
```
Extract tarball.
```
$ tar xJvf emacs-$VERSION.tar.xz
```
Run ./configure to generate the make file. If you remember the option you have given when you install it, add those command line flags, too. (e.g. --with-x=no)
```
$ cd emacs-$VERSION
$ ./configure
```
Do make uninstall to uninstall.
```
$ sudo make uninstall
```

Enjoy!

score 5 · Answer 3 · answered Oct 17 '20 at 12:28

5

For me removing emacs-gtk worked

sudo apt-get remove emacs-gtk

answered Oct 17 '20 at 12:28

Yusuf

151

Thank you so much. This was exactly my problem. – wbadry Jun 18 '21 at 15:10

score 5 · Accepted Answer · edited Feb 22 '15 at 09:52

5

apt-get can not detect the applications which you have installed from source.Actually every source file will have uninstall script also but unfortunately you have removed the source file.

You may still do this. In the terminal type as

locate emacs

it will list all it footprints in the system , then remove those emacs footprints by using rm command carefully.

edited Feb 22 '15 at 09:52

Peaceful

205

answered Nov 15 '13 at 01:59

Raja G

105,627
107
263
332

So I should keep the source file in order to remove the application in the future. When I decide to remove it, I run make uninstall, and then delete the downloaded source file. Is that right? Should I run make clean after make uninstall? – Yang Wenhao Nov 15 '13 at 02:50
1

@YangWenhao It may be make remove or some other command, but yes, when you install software from source, you need to keep the source code around so you can do make uninstall or similar to remove the software. Source-built software isn't managed by the packaging system because it's not existing as a Debian package. – Thomas Ward Nov 15 '13 at 03:06
@ThomasW. Thank you for your help. I know the right way. – Yang Wenhao Nov 15 '13 at 06:04
4

locate emacs will not "list all it footprints in the system", it will simply show you files which have 'emacs' in the name. With a program as large as emacs, many of the added files likely don't have 'emacs' in the name or path. – Steven K Nov 16 '13 at 20:05

score 2 · Answer 5 · answered Apr 20 '21 at 02:51

2

Using apt

sudo apt remove emacs

followed by

sudo apt autoremove

this will remove both emacs-terminal and emacs-GUI

answered Apr 20 '21 at 02:51

Shadman Wakil

23

score 2 · Answer 6 · answered Oct 25 '21 at 07:12

2

sudo apt remove --purge emacs-bin-common emacs-el emacs-gtk

This command worked for me

answered Oct 25 '21 at 07:12

MD SHAYON

415

score 1 · Answer 7 · answered May 13 '19 at 17:25

1

I tried this and worked for me :

Go the emacs installed Icon in the apps:
Click the right button > Show Details
Click on the uninstalled button.
Go to terminal > emacs--version.
Nothing is there.
Enjoy.

answered May 13 '19 at 17:25

SAHOTA

11

score 1 · Answer 8 · answered Jul 16 '15 at 04:53

Using checkinstall

Close all package managers
Download the archive again
Compile emacs again
Install the package checkinstall
```
sudo apt-get install checkinstall
```
Install emacs with
```
sudo checkinstall
```
to overwrite you previous installation and to have a deb package. That's the trick.
Remove the emacs package, the command is shown after the installation via checkinstall.

score 0 · Answer 9 · answered Oct 08 '21 at 04:08

This worked for me to uninstall emacs which was installed through ppa:kelleyk/emacs.

I initially tried

sudo apt purge --autoremove emacs$VERSION

it removed some emacs files but the emacs itself does not removed. when I went to my terminal and do emacs --version, I can still open emacs.

I then reinstalled emacs$VERSION once more

sudo apt install emacs$VERSION

then again purged the emacs

sudo apt purge --autoremove emacs$VERSION

Now its completely removed.

How to completely remove my Emacs?

9 Answers9