Uninstall Podman Desktop

Uninstalling Podman Desktop does not automatically remove the created Kubernetes clusters, Podman, or other resources. To uninstall, perform the following tasks:

1. Optional: Remove cluster resources
2. Uninstall Podman
3. Uninstall Podman Desktop

Optional: Remove cluster resources

• For Kind, use the UI to delete the Kind cluster or run the kind delete clusters --all command.

• For Minikube, run minikube delete and then remove the ~/.minikube folder.

  note

  You can find the installed binaries and plugins for Podman Desktop at ~/.local/share/containers/podman-desktop/extensions-storage/, and you may delete them if necessary.

Uninstall Podman

Windows

You can delete all pods, containers, and images by removing the Podman machine.

1. Remove all Podman machines:

   $ podman machine reset -f

2. Uninstall Podman from the Start menu, Settings, or Control Panel. For more details, see the resource.
3. Remove Podman files and configurations:

   rm -Recurse -Force ~/.local/share/containers/podman
   rm -Recurse -Force ~/.config/containers/
   rm -Recurse -Force ~/AppData/Roaming/containers

macOS

1. Remove all Podman machines:

   $ podman machine reset -f

2. Perform one of the following steps based on your installation:
   • If you have installed Podman using brew, run the following command:

     $ brew uninstall podman

   • If you have installed Podman using the Podman Desktop setup, run the following commands one by one:

     $ sudo /opt/podman/bin/podman-mac-helper uninstall
     $ sudo rm /etc/paths.d/podman-pkg
     $ sudo rm -rfv /opt/podman

3. Remove the Podman files and configurations:

   $ rm -rf ~/.local/share/containers/podman
   $ rm -rf ~/.config/containers/podman

4. Optional: Delete storage configuration:

   $ rm -rf ~/.local/share/containers/storage

Linux

By default, Podman is available on Linux distributions, such as CentOS Stream, Fedora, and Red Hat Enterprise Linux. However, you can remove Podman resources, including containers, pods, images, and Podman machines.

• To remove all containers, run the podman rm -a -f command.
• To remove all pods, run the podman pod rm -a -f command.
• To remove all images, run the podman rmi -a -f command.
• To remove all Podman machines, run the podman machine reset -f command.

note

If you uninstall Podman while Podman Desktop is running, restart Podman Desktop so that it detects the change. See Podman Desktop shows an outdated Podman version after Podman is uninstalled.

Uninstall Podman Desktop

Windows

1. Choose an uninstall method based on how Podman Desktop was installed and perform the necessary step:

   uninstall methods:

   • Installer
   • Chocolatey
   • Scoop
   • Winget

   Installer

   • Uninstall Podman Desktop from the Start menu, Settings, or Control Panel. For more details, see the resource.

   Chocolatey

   • Run the following command:

     > choco uninstall podman-desktop

   Scoop package manager for Windows

   • Run the following command:

     > scoop uninstall podman-desktop

   Winget

   • Run the following command:

     > winget uninstall -e --id RedHat.Podman-Desktop

2. Remove the Podman Desktop configuration files:

   $ rm -Recurse -Force ~/.local/share/containers/podman-desktop/
   $ rm -Recurse -Force ~/AppData/Roaming/Podman Desktop

3. Remove temporary files, caches, and blobs:

   $ rm -Recurse -Force ~/AppData/Roaming/Podman Desktop

macOS

1. Perform one of the following steps based on your installation:

   • If you have installed Podman Desktop using brew, run the following command:

     $ brew uninstall podman-desktop

   • If you have installed Podman Desktop using the .dmg file, perform the following steps:
     1. Locate the Podman Desktop .dmg file.
     2. Drag the Podman Desktop icon and drop it to the trash folder.

2. Remove the Podman Desktop configuration files:

   $ rm -rf ~/.local/share/containers/podman-desktop

Linux

1. Uninstall Podman Desktop using flatpak or flathub:

   $ flatpak uninstall io.podman_desktop.PodmanDesktop

2. Remove the Podman Desktop configuration folder:

   $ rm -rf ~/.local/share/containers/podman-desktop