Uninstall Commentware — Commentware

Remove the extension, the server and everything the installer wrote, and choose whether your comments go too.

Remove what the installer put on this computer: the extension’s files, the server and its services, and the lines that put commentware on your PATH. Do this when you are done with Commentware here, or before you install it a different way.

Prerequisites

Commentware installed with the installer, from Install the Chrome extension or Install a server. The installer is in ~/Commentware/bin (%USERPROFILE%\Commentware\bin on Windows).

Run the uninstall

Run the installer with --uninstall. On macOS and Linux:
```
~/Commentware/bin/commentware-installer-cli --uninstall
```
On Windows, in PowerShell:
```
& "$env:USERPROFILE\Commentware\bin\commentware-installer-cli.exe" --uninstall
```
If it stops with Nothing has been removed and names --install server, the server is too old to be asked to stop. Run the install command you installed with, which updates the server, then run the uninstall again.
If it asks Delete your Commentware data as well?, type y and press Enter to delete every comment, screenshot, picture, drawing and user in the data directory it names. Press Enter alone to keep them. With no terminal to ask on, it keeps them. Learn more about what Commentware stores.

Caution: A y cannot be undone. The database is the only copy of the comments, and nothing else holds it.

Wait while it stops every Commentware server and service on this computer for your account, then removes the files. It prints what it removed:

Stopping every Commentware server and service.

No Commentware service is installed.
Stopped the Commentware server at http://127.0.0.1:7042 (pid 41822).
  database  /home/alex/.local/share/commentware/data.db

Removed:

     /home/alex/.local/share/commentware
     /home/alex/.config/commentware
     /home/alex/Commentware/extension
     /home/alex/Commentware/server
     /home/alex/Commentware/env
     /home/alex/Commentware/invite
     /home/alex/Commentware/bin/commentware
     /home/alex/Commentware/bin/commentware-installer-cli
     /home/alex/Commentware/bin
     /home/alex/Commentware
     the PATH line in /home/alex/.profile
     the PATH line in /home/alex/.bashrc
     the PATH line in /home/alex/.zshenv

If it stops with Nothing else has been removed, a server or a service could not be stopped. The lines above that sentence are the server’s own, and say why. Deal with that, then run the uninstall again.

In Chrome, open chrome://extensions in the Commentware profile and select Remove on Commentware. To remove the whole profile instead, delete it from Chrome’s profile menu. Nothing outside Chrome can remove an extension.
On macOS and Linux, close every terminal you opened since the install. Each keeps ~/Commentware/bin on its PATH until it closes.
On Windows, once the uninstall has finished, run the Remove-Item command it lists under Left in place:. The installer cannot delete itself while it runs, so %USERPROFILE%\Commentware stays until then.

The uninstall removes only what the installer wrote. Everything else in your shell startup files stays as it is. A file in ~/Commentware that it does not recognize stays too, and the uninstall lists it under Left in place:. A service from a server installed with a package manager is removed too, and the server’s own lines in step 3 name it.

Before it stops the server, the uninstall takes the server out of every AI agent’s MCP client it connected — the ones mcp connect wrote a key into — and revokes each key. If mcp disconnect --all does not finish, the uninstall lists it under Left in place: and goes on.

When your config file keeps screenshots, pictures and drawings in a directory outside the data directory, the question in step 2 names that directory, and a y does not delete it. The uninstall prints its path under Left in place:, and you delete it yourself.

Check that it worked

The uninstall ends with no Could not remove: list. On macOS and Linux, run this straight after it:

echo $?

It prints 0. In PowerShell, $LASTEXITCODE is 0. In a new terminal, commentware is no longer found, unless a package manager installed another copy of the server.

Next steps

Install the Chrome extension: install it again.