How do I uninstall Spotify?

February 14, 2018 10:28 PM

How do I uninstall Spotify?

I installed it and found that I don't want it yet I seem to have a virus, there is no way to uninstall it completely and Google searching yields only sketchy websites that I've never heard of. Searching on Ask.Metafilter.com yields no results. I want this off of my computer, I'm seeing pop-ups. Yes, I'm talking about the Spotify app that everyone loves.

posted by ender6574 to Computers & Internet (7 answers total)

You need to tell us what OS and version you're running for full details, but in brief:

If on Mac, throw the application in the Trash and empty.

If on Windows, procedure will differ slightly by version as they renamed some things with Windows 10, but:

Pre-Windows 10: Control Panel -> Add/Remove Programs -> find the entry for Spotify, select and uninstall

Windows 10: Control Panel -> Programs and Features -> find the entry for Spotify, select and uninstall
posted by killdevil at 10:33 PM on February 14, 2018

Just for fun I tried to uninstall Spotify and I couldn't, either (Windows 7). When you go to uninstall it it throws an error. I even tried forcing it as admin, no joy. I followed every procedure available at the Spotify web site and none of them worked. I even tried forcing all Spotify related processes to close, logging out of Spotify, and THEN uninstalling. Nope.

I'll keep looking. Now that I see how difficult it is to get rid of, I want to get rid of it, because screw that.
posted by xyzzy at 11:13 PM on February 14, 2018

Mac? Windows? On Windows, when I have have trouble uninstalling programs, I use something called Revo Uninstaller.

Seems like if you google "can't uninstall Spotify" a ton of hits come up. Not sure if they'd help you, but sounds like you're not alone.
posted by AppleTurnover at 11:30 PM on February 14, 2018 [1 favorite]

Spotify does not come with pop-ups. Where did you download the installer from?
posted by wachhundfisch at 1:44 AM on February 15, 2018 [3 favorites]

just fyi- spotify is installed per user on windows in your appdata folder so it does not require admin rights to uninstall. you'll need to uninstall it from the user that ran/installed it.

the spotify help site is also suggesting you kill the spotify.exe and spotifywebhelper.exe processes before trying to uninstall.
posted by noloveforned at 6:49 AM on February 15, 2018 [1 favorite]

Response by poster: I've got Windows 10. I originally installed from the Spotify website when I paid for premium. I also installed the Win 10 app. I've cancelled premium and maybe mostly got the main program uninstalled. So it might be the app, bot Spotify opens when I start my PC. No option to disable this. It's not in the add/remove programs list. I'll look into it more this evening.
posted by ender6574 at 9:04 AM on February 15, 2018

It's somewhat counter-intuitive, but if the uninstall borked itself, you may have some luck with re-installing and then try to uninstall the program again.

As for it's startup behavior, here's how to change the startup setting from within Spotify, or, failing that, by disabling it from starting up via the Windows Task Manager.
posted by Aleyn at 1:20 PM on February 15, 2018