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I installed Skype on my nephew's new Ubuntu 14.04 LTS machine, and now we've decided to remove it. But I'm not able to locate it in my Installed programs section of Ubuntu Software Center. I'm able to call it up by opening the debian package, Software Center opens it up, but where I would normally see the "Remove" button, I have a "Reinstall" button. For the life of me, I can't figure out how to uninstall Skype. Any suggestions? In case you're wondering I used the version of Skype designed for 12.xx, as there was no option available for Ubuntu 14.xx.

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11 Answers 11

65

My case is something different, here i run two commands :-

dpkg --get-selections | grep 'skype'

output is :- skype-bin:i386 install

So, to remove i run :-

sudo apt-get --purge remove skype-bin:i386

and after that i remove ".Skype" from home directory

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  • 1
    While the "skypeforlinux" answer was correct for my particular use case, this shows me how in general to find what I have installed as well as know how to remove it.
    – Phil
    Aug 4, 2018 at 6:35
  • This uninstalls the Skype that does not work in Ubuntu 16.04 Sep 24, 2018 at 6:04
  • What problem you are facing? Oct 26, 2018 at 14:18
35

To uninstall completely Skype from your system you just type the following line in Terminal:

sudo apt-get purge skype

And next time if you decide to install Skype again, follow How to install Skype 4.3

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  • 1
    As @harts12 recommends we need to apply after sudo apt-get autoremove. Which is correct, simply verify it by running sudo apt-get update && sudo apt-get upgrade -y and you will see something like: The following packages were automatically installed and are no longer required: ... (list of packages)... Use 'sudo apt autoremove' to remove them.
    – Thanos
    Jun 19, 2017 at 8:00
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In my case:

sudo apt-get --purge remove skypeforlinux
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  • I think this will remove the latest Skype 5.x and not 4.3. Oct 31, 2017 at 16:53
  • sudo apt-get --purge remove skype-bin:i386 removed the old skype for me
    – Malachiasz
    Dec 31, 2017 at 11:59
  • This uninstalls the Skype that works properly in Ubuntu 16.04 Sep 24, 2018 at 6:05
13

Sometimes just doing :

sudo apt-get --purge remove skype

will not uninstall skype 4.3 version

Hence i would recommend doing :

sudo apt-get --purge remove skype:i386

and then going to home directory do "ctrl+H" and remove .skype folder...

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  • skype:i386 did it even though I'm running a 64bit computer. Nov 7, 2016 at 20:27
11

This worked for me on Ubuntu 16.04.2 as of the date of this answer.

Remove package:

sudo apt remove skypeforlinux

Remove config:

rm -rf ~/.config/skypeforlinux

Remove repo:

sudo rm -v /etc/apt/sources.list.d/skype-*
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  • It is the best answer. I had saved config with bugs after reinstall and only this solution helped for me. Jul 16, 2018 at 22:55
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Install and use Synaptic Package Manager, which you can find in Software Center to remove Skype. It is easy to manage installed/update/remove applications in this thing.
About Synaptic here - Synaptic Package Manager

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This is how I removed skype

dpkg --get-selections | grep 'skype'

sudo apt-get --purge remove skypeforlinux

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I did the following pair of commands on Ubuntu 16.04.02 to get rid of Skype 4.3:

sudo apt-get --purge remove skype
sudo apt-get autoremove

The first by itself still left a fully functional Skype installation. Autoremove took finished removing Skype without needing to manually delete any directories.

Edit: The answers using skypeforlinux are for the newer versions of Skype (e.g. Skype 5.3).

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As for me - I removed skype with this:

sudo dpkg --remove skypeforlinux
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If you have installed your skype from official skype then it will be

sudo apt-get --purge remove skypeforlinux

If this not works then you need to check your skype name, run below command to check it :-

dpkg --get-selections | grep 'skype'

output is :- skypelinux install

So, to remove i run :-

sudo apt-get --purge remove skypeforlinux

If you have installed it from software centre then you can un-install it from there also.

0

sudo apt-get purge skype-bin

Only removing skype didn't work for me.

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