May 22, 2024
Summary: In this tutorial, you will learn step-by-step how to uninstall PostgreSQL from Ubuntu.
Table of Contents
The following is a step-by-step tutorial to uninstall PostgreSQL from Ubuntu:
Step 1. Uninstall the PostgreSQL application
Open the SSH terminal and run the following command to remove PostgreSQL from Ubuntu:
sudo apt-get --purge remove postgresql
Step 2. Remove PostgreSQL packages
Run the following command to show all installed PostgreSQL packages:
dpkg -l | grep postgres
The command will return a list of installed PostgreSQL packages.
To uninstall PostgreSQL completely, you need to remove all of these packages using the following command:
sudo apt-get --purge remove <package_name>
Replace <package_name> with the names of the installed packages.
Typically, you may have several packages such as postgresql, and postgresql-client-16. Make sure to remove all of them.
Step 3. Remove PostgreSQL directories
Remove the PostgreSQL’s related directories by executing the following commands:
sudo rm -rf /var/lib/postgresql/
sudo rm -rf /var/log/postgresql/
sudo rm -rf /etc/postgresql/
Step 4. Remove the postgres user
Typically, the PostgreSQL installer creates a system user postgres during the installation. To remove it, you can run the following command:
sudo deluser postgres
Step 5. Verify uninstallation
Finally, you can verify the uninstallation of PostgreSQL by using the following command:
psql --version
If PostgreSQL is uninstalled successfully, this command should return the following message:
-bash: /usr/bin/psql: No such file or directory
That’s it! PostgreSQL should now be completely uninstalled from your Ubuntu system.