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Uninstalling DDEV

A DDEV installation consists of:

  • The self-contained ddev binary.
  • Each project’s .ddev directory.
  • The global ~/.ddev directory where various global items are stored.
  • The global ~/.ddev_mutagen_data_directory directory where Mutagen sync data may be stored.
  • The associated Docker images and containers DDEV created.
  • Any entries in /etc/hosts.

Please use ddev snapshot or ddev export-db to make backups of your databases before deleting projects or uninstalling.

You can use ddev clean to uninstall the vast majority of things DDEV has touched. For example, ddev clean <project> or ddev clean --all.

To uninstall one project, run ddev delete <project>. This removes any hostnames in /etc/hosts and removes your database. If you don’t want it to make a database backup/snapshot on the way down, include the --omit-snapshot option: ddev delete --omit-snapshot <project>.

To remove all DDEV-owned /etc/hosts entries: ddev hostname --remove-inactive.

To remove the global .ddev directory: rm -r ~/.ddev.

To remove the global .ddev_mutagen_data_directory directory: rm -r ~/.ddev_mutagen_data_directory.

If you installed Docker only for DDEV and want to uninstall it with all containers and images, uninstall it for your version of Docker.

Otherwise:

  • Remove Docker images from before the current DDEV release with ddev delete images.
  • Remove all DDEV Docker containers that might still exist: docker rm $(docker ps -a | awk '/ddev/ { print $1 }').
  • Remove all DDEV Docker images that might exist: docker rmi $(docker images | awk '/ddev/ {print $3}').
  • Remove all Docker images of any type (does no harm; they’ll be re-downloaded): docker rmi -f $(docker images -q).
  • Remove any Docker volumes: docker volume rm $(docker volume ls | awk '/ddev|-mariadb/ { print $2 }').

To remove the ddev binary:

  • Find the binary location with which -a ddev, you may have several binaries installed in different ways. The output will give you a general idea of how you installed it.
  • On macOS or Linux with Homebrew, brew uninstall ddev.
  • For Linux or other simple installs, remove the binary. Example: sudo rm /usr/local/bin/ddev. For Linux installed via apt, sudo apt remove ddev.
  • On Windows, if you used the DDEV Windows installer, use the uninstall on the Start Menu or in the “Add or Remove Programs” section of Windows Settings.