A lot of people have come to one of my other articles looking for a way to completely uninstall Minecraft from their computer. I will show you how to do that in this article, plus show you a helpful shortcut for Windows.
Uninstall Minecraft In Windows
Minecraft is simply a set of files in your user folder.
Open My Computer
and type %appdata%
to get there.
Simply delete the folder called .minecraft
to remove Minecraft from your computer. If you are planning to reinstall the game afterward, you may want to copy your save game folder before deleting. I have verified that the newly released Minecraft 1.8 is still installed to this same directory in Windows.
You probably have a shortcut on your desktop that you can delete as well.
Uninstall Minecraft In OS X
For Mac users, you can find your Minecraft install under ~/Library/Application Support
. Per Mac user Jon’s comments below, the minecraft folder is a hidden folder.
Open finder and press Shift-Command-G. Then type in
“~/Library/Application Support/minecraft”
Simply delete your Minecraft folder here to remove the game.
Aside from the game, there will also be cached files from http://minecraft.net under Applications > Utilities > Java Preferences
in the Network tab
. Delete these also to complete your uninstall.
Additional Information
Minecraft is a self contained program that runs using Java. Unlike pretty much every other game, Minecraft does not enter data into the registry of your operating system.
You do not have to worry about leftover settings somewhere after deleting the game’s folder.
Also, if you get an error when trying to delete your game folder, that means that something in the folder is still in use. The most obvious reason would be that the game is still running. If it continues to give you errors, restart your computer and then try to delete the folder.
If this information helped you out, leave a comment! Thanks!
i have deleted all the files that are connected with minecraft, but can download it from minecraft.com. when i click download it says: Fatal exception occured. Program will exit. the same reaction I had when i clicked on minecraft exe. so i thought deleting whole minecraft would have worked, but now I cant download it?? could u help me?
umm there is no minecraft folder there for me D: But i have the minecraft icon right there in front of me and it works.
It looks like things have changed in the recent release. This article is getting old.
You can find out where your version is installed by right clicking that icon and checking out ‘properties.’
all i want to do is find my mc folder iv done everything, even going to library aplacation support all that jazz and i can’t find it i swear iv looked everywhere and no sign of the folder. the thing is i can still play minecraft to!!!!????!!!! WTF MATE WHAT DO I DOOOO AHHHHHHHHHHHG!!!!
Hey Alex, I don’t know enough about OS X to help you out here, but I do know that the install path has not changed for Windows. Maybe someone with Mac knowledge can chime in and help out. Maybe you have a setting to not display certain types of files or something. Do you have a shortcut that you can follow to the source?
Open finder and press Shift-Command-G. Type in “~/Library/Application Support/minecraft”. There will be everything you need. For some reason, the Mac systems hide the minecraft folder.
Thanks Jon! I will update the Mac part of the article per your findings.
That folder is not present any more, this needs to be updated.
Minecraft for the Mac has become totally annoying on our school machines. How on earth can this be totally removed and/or blocked? We have a dual platform environment. Our network is on Windows Active Directory so there is no way that we can centrally manage the stupid Mac machines. Is there a one-click uninstaller for the Mac available?
So you are trying to keep students from playing instead of using the computers for school? 🙂
There’s no uninstaller per-say, because Minecraft is just a folder and not actually installed on the machine (at least until recently, anyway). Newer versions may have changed, but it’s still the same on Windows versions- just a folder for the game.
Um, i deleted everything to do with minecraft since it was having a problem updating. I deleted the file that should be in application support yet i put it on the sidebar about a month ago, so i can get to it easily. I expected it to be in application support when I had re-downloaded it, and It wasnt there. I tried looking it up if it were anywhere in my computer yet it wasnt. O.o’ im worried now because i cant have textures now and i cant update minecraft. Help? >.<
I unninstalled it but the .minecraft folder was still there and everytime i try and delete it the computer says i need “permission” we only have one account on this computer and now i cant redownload the game..
are you an administrator on your computer? Looks like your user doesn’t have rights to remove that. You might be able to enter Safe Mode and delete the folder through there, or you can try editing the Roaming folder: right click Roaming folder > Properties > Security
Hi, my son is an avid minecraft player. However, his hard drive recently crashed on his computer and we are sending it out to have the hard drive replaced. This means he will lose EVERYTHING on his laptop and it will be like we just bought it. My question is will he have to purchase Minecraft again or is there a way to re-download his that he already purchased??? I am sorry if this is off topic but i don’t know where else to turn there is no contact info on Minecraft. PLEASE HELP!!!!! Thank you 🙂
Actually you can go and re-download it anytime you need to (at least that’s the way it has always worked), since you create an account when it was bought.
hey umm Im asking how we uninstall LAN cuz i like it but i made a server and it doesnt work and it never allows ,me to get on any server soo how do i freaking remove it off minecraft i hate it now i mean it!
No mulutiplayer and no breaking blocks in survial isnt that cheating so unfair screw you notch for making lan SCREW YOU! now i have to start everything from the beggining i need to delete eveyminecraft texture and mod i have becuase of the stupid lan WHY NOTCH WHY!? I mean serouisly half of the people who play minecraft want to play on mutuplayer but NO USE!
Thanks! Worked for me. 🙂
Can someone tell me what I am doing wrong, please? I have been trying to force update on my desktop widows pc, but it just keeps hanging up at the beginning. I used to play minecraft on that pc all the time, it always updated. A couple months back I tried to run my own Bukkit server, could not install it correctly so went back to playing. Now the server I play on has updated and I cannot. I have tried completely uninstalling with the above method, completely deleting every file folder I can find on my pc, reinstalling it with the same rar file I used a year ago, and it still hangs up. Yes, all of my saved data is gone, but that is no problem, there still has to be something blocking the update. I also have minecraft in my windows firewall. btw, I am still runniong XP on that pc but that should not matter.
Thanks in advance,
Bill
Bill, you say it’s “hanging up at the beginning” and then “something blocking the update.” That sounds like 2 different things to me. You are either describing the game locking up or update issues. What is happening?
It is only one problem. The game plays perfectly in single player mode, but when I try to force update so that I can play his server and the update hangs up right after the beginning. I am presuming that something is either being blocked now for some reason. Either the game or java. Either way, it is very frustrating when you are a Minecraft Freak such as I.
Thanks for responding so quickly.
Bill
Ah, so the game locks up when you try to update? Yeah, that definitely sounds like a network/firewall issue. Check for any anti-virus/security programs. If you are sure that you only have Windows Firewall, you can try totally disabling that and trying to do an update.
I tried that also, no go.
Thank You Again.
Thanks ppl dont belive me anymore i quit
okay so i went into rage mode and i deleted some file i hav no idea wat i deleted, and i cant find library!!! help!!!
oh yah i hav a mac
scroll to the person that is named Jon
Ill tell u what i usually do before i ask the question,
ok, i have a mac osx lion, i downloaded minecraft on my mac but i dont have an account, so what i do is open the exe then i turn off my internet connection and it if you press login it’ll say play offline, now ive been doing this recently, i downloaded a mod and didn’t like it, i accidentally deleted the singleplayer commands (the normal one not the mod), so i went to this site because i wanted to uninstall it. now i did wat it said on the top but the thing about the network tab eludes me so i need help, I am not blaming anybody for my stupidity, but i need that last instruction to be clearer cuz i redownloaded mine craft but when i turn off my internet connection and login, the button would NOT APPEAR!!!! plz i need help and plz be very clear cuz i am not a computer whizz.
I have Windows Vista and there is no “My Computer” it just has “Computer” so it’s kinda confusing and sorry for my stupidity,but I clicked “Computer” and All I see is Simcity 4 Deluxe and the harddrive plus the computer memory.Just someone help me.
Run > %appdata%
Please help me!
on my mac ive delted all of my minecraft folders but i cant delete one called Minecraft_Server exe
It says its a enclosing folder so maybe thats why it wont work
Plz help
Asked around to a couple Mac users, but no one was familiar enough to help with this one. Hopefully, someone else can chime in and help out with your folder issue.
Thank You Very Much!!!!!!! I was afraid that i would loose my saves. I can’t say how happy I am!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! 🙂
Okay, I did this as I am supposed to.
I uninstalled by deleting the folder, original exe, everything to do with it. I re-downloaded it.
Now every time I try to play it says “Not Downloaded” while I am in the login screen.
WTF?!
I’m confused. “I have verified that the newly released Minecraft 1.8 is still installed to this same directory in Windows” What??? 1.6.2 is the current release with 1.7 being next. What am I missing?
This article has been around for years ccat. It was from the old versioning system in Beta.
I have windows 8 and when I try to delete my .minecraft folder, it says, and I quote, “this action cant be completed because this folder is open in Java(TM) Platform SE Binary” I have no idea what this means! If anyone could help me, please help.
Hi Zach, that means you have something running that is tied to minecraft. In this case, you need to open task manager (ctrl+alt+del) and end the process for JAVA that is running. Try to delete the folder after killing that process
thank you so much for the info!
my minecraft is still open and my mac won’t let me close it down. It froze when i was playing it and the screen went black i don’t know how to close it and i have tried quoting it and that dozen work either. Please help