python setup.py uninstall

Question

I have installed a python package with python setup.py install.

How do I uninstall it?

Answer 1

Note: Avoid using python setup.py install use pip install .

You need to remove all files manually, and also undo any other stuff that installation did manually.

If you don't know the list of all files, you can reinstall it with the --record option, and take a look at the list this produces.

To record a list of installed files, you can use:

python setup.py install --record files.txt

Once you want to uninstall you can use xargs to do the removal:

xargs rm -rf < files.txt

Or if you're running Windows, use Powershell:

Get-Content files.txt | ForEach-Object {Remove-Item $_ -Recurse -Force}

Then delete also the containing directory, e.g. /Library/Frameworks/Python.framework/Versions/3.7/lib/python3.7/site-packages/my_module-0.1.egg/ on macOS. It has no files, but Python will still import an empty module:

>>> import my_module
>>> my_module.__file__
None

Once deleted, Python shows:

>>> import my_module
Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "<stdin>", line 1, in <module>
ModuleNotFoundError: No module named 'my_module'