Need surefire steps to completely uninstall Audacity

Q: Is there a surefire way to COMPLETELY uninstall Audacity? The manual does not provide enough details and other relevant posts in the forum are from ages ago. (Perhaps I haven’t looked hard enough in the forum, but then again uninstalling should not be this difficult. End of editorial).

Background: I am having issues with the new v3.4 so decided to downgrade to v3.3.3. This is temporary…really looking forward to some of the new features in v3.4.

When I use Windows uninstall I get the message that not all components are gone and it’s up to me to finish the job manually. Hmm…only thing I know how to do is delete the Audacity folder in Programs which I did. I then installed v3.3.3 but some remnants of v3.4 remain, for example, the ability to snap to bars. Help > About does report I have v3.3.3.

If I uninstall v3.3.3 and start over I get the same result.

Uninstalling Audacity usually leaves the Audacity Preferences folder untouched. This is so that any custom settings you have made can be carried over to a new version when you upgrade.

On Windows, the Preference settings are in a hidden folder: Users<username>\AppData\Roaming\audacity
(where “” is your account name when you log into Windows).

To delete the Preference settings, delete that “audacity” folder.

So what you are seeing is 3.4 Beta code that was actually shipped and installed in 3.3.3. To remove this “Beta” toolbar, simply do Tools > Reset Configuration. Alternatively, View > Toolbars, and deselect the Time Signature Toolbar (Beta)

The best way to uninstall any program is to use the OS uninstall facility. There are also 3rd party tools to assist in this area.

In Windows, there may be some remnants remaining in the C:\Users-your name-\Appdata subdirectories. There is an “audacity” directory under each of AppData’s subdirectories. Simply delete those subdirectories.

Note: Your AppData subdirectory may be hidden. To view “hidden” folders, see: View hidden files and folders in Windows - Microsoft Support

Thank you to @steve and @jademan!

I may be able to get back to v3.4, based on a tip from @steve in a different post. If not, I will apply these suggestions and see how it goes.

Still should be able to completely remove Audacity or any Windows program without trouble, but we live in the real world, eh?

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