How do I remove Steam?

Question

Anyone know of a way to remove Steam from Ubuntu 12.04? Looked around the net but could not find an straight forward solution. Thanks.

Solution 1

You can use Ubuntu Software Center to uninstall or Open Terminal and execute the following command:

sudo apt-get remove steam steam-launcher

Purge Steam Perfectly with Configuration files with the following:

sudo apt-get purge steam steam-launcher

Never forget to delete its directory located at home folder:

rm -rf ~/.local/share/Steam && rm -rf ~/.steam

Solution 2

The .deb package is just a wrapper. Steam's launcher installs itself to ~/.local/share/Steam and can be over 1GiB so make sure you remove it.

sudo apt-get purge steam
sudo apt-get purge steam-launcher
cd ~/.local/share && rm -rf Steam
rm ~/.steampath
rm ~/.steampid

You may have only one of "steam" or "steam-launcher".

Solution 3

Removing Steam using the Ubuntu Software Centre:

1. Open the Ubuntu Software Centre, by clicking on the appropriate icon in the launcher, or opening the dash and searching for it.

2. Search for "Steam" in the Ubuntu Software Centre.

3. Select it, and click "Remove"

This will remove Steam from your system. Only system files, however, will be removed, user files will not. For most programs, user files are very small and not worth worrying about, but for Steam, they include all your downloaded games, and can be quite large. To delete your user files:

1. Open Nautilus, the default file explorer.

2. Click "View", "Show Hidden Files", or press Ctrl-H.

3. Navigate to .local/share/ and delete the steam folder.

Removing steam using the command-line:

You can do the equivalent of the previous steps in just two commands:

$ sudo apt-get remove steam
$ rm -r ~/.local/share/steam

In general, programs on Linux tend to keep user files in hidden directories in the home folder, either under .local/share, .config or .cache, or in a separate .PROGRAMNAME directory. Hidden files and directories always begin with a dot.

Solution 4

I had the same issue - installed with the .deb package from the website rather than using Terminal. I fixed by running:

sudo apt-get purge steam
cd ~/.local/share && rm -rf Steam

And then clicking on the menu and searching for the Steam app that was still present, right clicking it and selecting uninstall which removed the rest of the files. I hope this helps!

Solution 5

Open a terminal window (Ctrl+Alt+T). Then type:

sudo apt-get remove steam

View more solutions

Comments

[Hector Arzuaga Jr]

Good morning, I installed steam using the steam install packaged from the steam site. At the present moment I have deleted the directory for it. Not sure if that is the best way to accomplish this. Thanks.

[Eliah Kagan]

rm -rf ~/.local/share/Steam is correct but a tiny mistake--a space between ~ and / or between / and .--would result in every file in the home directory being deleted, including all the user's documents! Therefore, I recommend instead using: cd ~/.local/share && rm -rf Steam

[Iago]

You can use sudo apt-get remove steam-launcher for this.

[Ionică Bizău]

Also, rm -rf ~/.steam.

[Nick Bailuc]

steam:i386 is not installed so not removed. whats the 64bit version?

[Roman M. Koss]

@EliahKagan Yes, but when u are using "tab" completion you will not have this kind of mistake.

[Eliah Kagan]

@RomanM.Kos I don't follow. When users make this mistake, I think it's almost always before they've typed enough characters for tab completion to be useful (whether or not they actually use tab completion). Replacing rm -rf with ls so it's safe and easy to test, typing ls ~ and then pressing tab displays a list of ~-shortened home directories (i.e., ~ followed by a username) for all user accounts, including those that don't correspond to a human user of the machine (like backup). More typing is required after this.

[Roman M. Koss]

@EliahKagan , missed this moment. i agree with you.

[Morozov]

Also can add sudo apt-get purge steam-launcher Bye bye steam ...

[Darryl Williams]

Answer is already updated with considering suggestions in above comments.

[Roi]

Seems like Steam also creates a folder in home directory ~/Steam

[August]

Thanks. purge was necessary to completely remove it on my system.