Uninstalling Unused Modules

Uninstalling Unused Modules with Joe Shindelar This tutorial covers how to uninstall modules. By the end of the tutorial you'll have uninstalled the core Search and History modules as well as the core Activity Tracker module if you installed it in an earlier tutorial. This technique applies to any module. Before getting started, you'll want to make sure that you're familiar with the concept of modules and the role that play, have at least 1 unused module on your site that you want to uninstall, and if you want to use Drush to uninstall modules, you'll need to have Drush installed. See the links in the written version of this tutorial for more information about any of these topics. You can use either the administrative interface or Drush to uninstall modules. We'll look at how to do both. To use the administrative interface, in the Manage administrative menu, click on Extend, and then on the Uninstall tab. Here you'll find the list of all modules that are ready to be uninstalled. A quick note, you cannot uninstall a module if it is required by some other module. For example, the core File module is required by the core text editor, CK editor, and image modules. It can't be uninstalled unless you uninstall its dependent modules and functionality first. A module that cannot be uninstalled yet, will have a disabled checkbox, restricting you from uninstalling it. Check the boxes for the modules you're uninstalling. Search History, and Activity Tracker. And scroll to the bottom of the page and click Uninstall. You'll be prompted to confirm the module uninstall request. Click Uninstall to continue. After the module has been uninstalled, you will be returned to the Extend page and a message will be displayed indicating that the module or modules have been successfully uninstalled. In order to use Drush to uninstall a module, you need to know the module's machine name. This can be found by going to the Extend page in the Manage administrative menu. Click on Extend. You can find the machine name of the module you want to uninstall, by expanding the information area for the module. For instance, the core Activity Tracker module's machine name is tracker. In the terminal, use the pm-uninstall Drush command to uninstall one or more modules. Multiple module names can be separated by a comma. After successfully uninstalling the modules, the command will display a message, letting you know that it was successful. In this tutorial we looked at how to uninstall an unused module using the administrative user interface and via the Drush command line tool.