How to remove the .NET Runtime and SDK

.NET uses the Windows Apps & features dialog to remove versions of the .NET runtime and SDK. The following figure shows the Apps & features dialog. You can search for core or .net to filter and show installed versions of .NET.

Select any versions you want to remove from your computer and click Uninstall.

The best way for you to uninstall .NET is to mirror the action you used to install .NET. The specifics depend on your chosen Linux distribution and the installation method.

Preview releases are manually installed, and must be manually uninstalled. For more information, see the Scripted or manual section.

You can remove the following types if .NET installations:

• Package manager
• Manually or scripted installs

Package manager

There's no need to first uninstall the .NET SDK when upgrading it using a package manager, unless you're upgrading from a preview version that was manually installed. The package manager update or refresh commands will automatically remove the older version upon the successful installation of a newer version. If you have a preview version installed, uninstall it.

If you installed .NET using a package manager, use that same package manager to uninstall the .NET SDK or runtime. .NET installations support most popular package managers. Consult the documentation for your distribution's package manager for the precise syntax in your environment:

• apt-get(8) is used by Debian based systems, including Ubuntu.
• yum(8) is used on Fedora, CentOS, Oracle Linux, and RHEL.
• zypper(8) is used on openSUSE and SUSE Linux Enterprise System (SLES).
• dnf(8) is used on Fedora.

In almost all cases, the command to remove a package is remove.

The package name for the .NET SDK installation for most package managers is dotnet-sdk, followed by the version number. Only the major and minor version numbers are necessary: for example, the .NET SDK version 8.0.200 can be referenced as the package dotnet-sdk-8.0.

For machines that have installed only the runtime, and not the SDK, the package name is dotnet-runtime-<version> for the .NET runtime, and aspnetcore-runtime-<version> for the entire runtime stack.

Scripted or manual

If you installed .NET using the dotnet-install script, or by extracting a tarball, you must remove .NET using the manual method.

When you manually install .NET, it's generally installed to the /usr/share/dotnet/, /usr/lib/dotnet/, or the $HOME/.dotnet directory. The SDK, runtime, and .NET host, are installed into separate sub directories. These "component" directories contain a directory for each version of .NET. By removing the versioned directories, you remove that version of .NET from your system. These directories may vary depending on your Linux distribution.

There are three commands you can use to discover where .NET is installed: dotnet --list-sdks for SDKs, dotnet --list-runtimes for runtimes, and dotnet --info for everything. These commands don't list the .NET host. To determine which hosts are installed, check the /usr/share/dotnet/host/fxr/ directory. The following list represents the directories of a specific version of .NET, where the $version variable represents the version of the .NET:

• SDK:

  /usr/share/dotnet/sdk/$version/

• Runtime:

  The runtime is based on specific .NET product runtimes, such as Microsoft.AspNetCore.All or Microsoft.NETCore.App (the .NET runtime specifically). These are installed to the /usr/share/dotnet/shared/$product/$version directory, where $product is the product runtime. For example, you may see the following directories:

  /usr/share/dotnet/shared/Microsoft.NETCore.App/$version/
  /usr/share/dotnet/shared/Microsoft.AspNetCore.App/$version/
  /usr/share/dotnet/shared/Microsoft.AspNetCore.All/$version/
  

• .NET host

  /usr/share/dotnet/host/fxr/$version/

Use the rm -rf command to remove a version of .NET. For example, to remove the 6.0.406 SDK, run the following command:

sudo rm -rf /usr/share/dotnet/sdk/6.0.406

When you manually install .NET, it's generally installed to the /usr/local/share/dotnet/ or the $HOME/.dotnet directory. The SDK, runtime, and .NET host are installed into separate sub directories. These "component" directories contain a directory for each version of .NET. By removing the versioned directories, you remove that version of .NET from your system. These directories may vary depending on your macOS version.

There are three commands you can use to discover where .NET is installed: dotnet --list-sdks for SDKs, dotnet --list-runtimes for runtimes, and dotnet --info for everything. These commands don't list the .NET host. To determine which hosts are installed, check the /usr/local/share/dotnet/host/fxr/ directory. The following list represents the directories of a specific version of .NET, where the $version variable represents the version of the .NET:

• SDK:

  /usr/local/share/dotnet/sdk/$version/

• Runtime:

  The runtime is based on specific .NET product runtimes, such as Microsoft.AspNetCore.All or Microsoft.NETCore.App (the .NET runtime specifically). These are installed to the /usr/local/share/dotnet/shared/$product/$version directory, where $product is the product runtime. For example, you might see the following directories:

  /usr/local/share/dotnet/shared/Microsoft.NETCore.App/$version/dotnet --info
  /usr/local/share/dotnet/shared/Microsoft.AspNetCore.App/$version/
  /usr/local/share/dotnet/shared/Microsoft.AspNetCore.All/$version/
  

• .NET host

  /usr/local/share/dotnet/host/fxr/$version/

Use the rm -rf command to remove a version of .NET. For example, to remove the 6.0.406 SDK, run the following command:

sudo rm -rf /usr/local/share/dotnet/sdk/6.0.406

Visual Studio dependency on .NET SDK versions

Before Visual Studio 2019 version 16.3, Visual Studio installers called the standalone SDK installer for .NET Core version 2.1 or 2.2. As a result, the SDK versions appear in the Windows Apps & features dialog. Removing .NET SDKs that were installed by Visual Studio using the standalone installer may break Visual Studio. If Visual Studio has problems after you uninstall SDKs, run Repair on that specific version of Visual Studio. The following table shows some of the Visual Studio dependencies on .NET Core SDK versions:

Starting with Visual Studio 2019 version 16.3, Visual Studio is in charge of its own copy of the .NET SDK. For that reason, you no longer see those SDK versions in the Apps & features dialog.