How to uninstall Image Magick?

Question

I want to remove ImageMagick from Ubuntu 16.04.

I've tried sudo apt-get remove imagemagick with no joy.

I've tried to click the "remove" button in the Ubuntu Software app, but that doesn't remove this app. (The Ubuntu Software app appears to remove it, but it doesn't actually uninstall. When I close and reopen the Ubuntu Software app, ImageMagick is still listed.)

I did not install this app. It apparently came pre-installed with the Ubuntu distribution. I've read elsewhere that if I had installed it with a make command that I could make an uninstall routine. If that is how I need to go, I'd very much appreciate which directory to use and which commands I need to use to create the uninstall routine.

(Note: this is not a duplicate of the other "How to uninstall Imagemagick" question, as that question was for a user who apparently had installed ImageMagick themselves.)

Thanks very much!

Solution 1

First, before removing it, you should know that you will remove other software that you might need, like parts of the printing system. My recommendation? Don't remove image magic.

But if you are sure you want to remove it, you can do this in a terminal window

sudo apt remove --purge imagemagick

Solution 2

Get the list of the installed apps by:

apt list --installed

Search for ImageMagick in the list and copy the name .In my case the name was "imagemagick-6.q16"

Then use to remove the app:

 sudo apt-get remove imagemagick-6.q16  

Hope that helps.

Solution 3

imagemagick may be a dependency for other pieces of software run

apt-cache showpkg imagemagick

to see what packages depend on imagemagick to run

However if you want to force a removal, this may cause unintended consequences! run

sudo dpkg --purge --force-all imagemagick

Comments

[trinkner]

Thanks! Yes, a lot of packages seem to depend on ImageMagick. I'd suggest that the entry in the Ubuntu Software app explain this, as its current description makes it sound like an alternative to Gimp: "ImageMagick is a software suite to create, edit, and compose bitmap images..." There isn't any mention of the app being a core system component.

[trinkner]

Thanks! I realized after checking the dependencies that ImageMagick is not simply an image editing package (as suggested by its description in the Ubuntu Software app), but seems to be a core system component of Ubuntu. I won't be uninstalling it.

[neuronet]

Wish I had read the whole answer before doing it. :O

[whitewings]

Many people have to uninstall imagemagick because they didn't install the decode delegates first. It's asinine that these delegates aren't included in the imagemagick installation. Or at the very least a warning to install them first.

[Admin]

There is no point doing this. he wants to remove his current installation. not a new one.