1. Overview

In this tutorial, we will see how to uninstall completely Google Chrome or Chromium in Ubuntu. Also we will check how to uninstall them without removing the config files, related packages and so on.

You can see these videos on this topic examples here:

2. Completely uninstall Google Chrome / Chromium Browser

Google Chrome and Chromium are similar but there are some subtle differences in the way they are installed or removed.

2.1. Remove Google Chrome

In order to remove Google Chrome in Ubuntu OS you need two commands:

sudo apt-get purge google-chrome-stable
sudo apt-get autoremove

This will remove all installation files and unused packages of Google Chrome. In future Google Chrome will not be installed again.

You can check for config files in folder: ~/.config/chromium/ or use command like:

locate google-chrome
which google-chrome

to get more information about:

  • where the package is installed
  • what else relate to google-chrome is present in your OS

2.2. Uninstall Chromium Browser

To remove Chromium Browser from Ubuntu or Linux Mint use the following commands:

sudo apt-get purge chromium-browser
sudo apt-get autoremove

Check folder ~/.config/chromium/ for config files

3. Backup and uninstall Google Chrome / Chromium Browser

3.1. Backup settings and remove Google Chrome

If we need to keep the Chrome settings and config files we can use next commands:

sudo apt-get purge google-chrome-stable
mv ~/.config/google-chrome/ ~/.config/google-chrome.bak/

This will save your personalization, settings and config files from Google Chrome.

To install it again you can check this video:

Ubuntu 16.04 install google chrome and use it in headless mode

3.2. Backup settings and uninstall Chromium Browser

For Chromium Browser we can use these commands to make a back up and them remove it:

sudo apt-get purge chromium-browser
mv ~/.config/chromium/ ~/.config/chromium.bak/

4. Manual uninstall of Google Chrome / Chromium

For manual uninstall of Chromium Browser or Chrome in Linux Mint and Ubuntu use next steps:

  • Menu
  • Software Manager
  • Search for Chrome or Chromium Browser
  • Find Google-chrome-stable etc
  • Open it in Software manager
  • Press remove

With this Google Chrome will be uninstalled from your system.

For backup you can export your personal settings locally or use Google profiles for synchronization.

Tested on Linux Mint 19.3, Linux Mint 20.1.

5. Conclusion

In this article we saw how to completely remove Google Chrome from your system. We checked how to do a backup.

Two ways were covered using terminal or the UI.