# Uninstalling netdata

Our self-contained uninstaller is able to remove netdata installations created with shell installer. It doesn't need any other netdata repository files to be run. All it needs is an .environment file, which is created during installation (with shell installer) and put in ${NETDATA_USER_CONFIG_DIR}/.environment (by default /etc/netdata/.environment). That file contains some parameters which are passed to our installer and which are needed during uninstallation process. Mainly two parameters are needed:
```
NETDATA_PREFIX
NETDATA_ADDED_TO_GROUPS
```

A workflow for uninstallation looks like this:

1. Find your `.environment` file, which is usually `/etc/netdata/.environment` in a default installation.
2. If you cannot find that file and would like to uninstall netdata, then create new file with following content:
```
NETDATA_PREFIX="<installation prefix>"   # put what you used as a parameter to shell installed `--install` flag. Otherwise it should be empty
NETDATA_ADDED_TO_GROUPS="<additional groups>"  # Additional groups for a user running netdata process
```
3. Download, chmod and run netdata-uninstaller.sh.
```
wget https://raw.githubusercontent.com/netdata/netdata/master/packaging/installer/netdata-uninstaller.sh
chmod +x ./netdata-uninstaller.sh
./netdata-uninstaller.sh --yes --env <environment_file>
```
The default `environment_file` is `/etc/netdata/.environment`. 

Note: This uninstallation method assumes previous installation with netdata-installer.sh or kickstart script. Currently using it when netdata was installed by a package manager can work or cause unexpected results.

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