How to Uninstall Ollama on Mac, Windows and Linux (and Remove Its Models)

By Web Asset House Studio · October 29, 2026

Note: Some future links on this site may be affiliate links. We never claim hands-on testing; guides are researched from the public sources listed in each article.

How we wrote this: A plain-English summary of Ollama's official documentation (macOS, Windows and Linux pages), checked October 29, 2026. Removing model folders deletes downloaded models permanently.

Before you start

Models are the biggest files. If you might reinstall, note where they are; see model storage. The commands below permanently delete files, so type them carefully.

macOS

Ollama's docs list these files and folders to remove:

sudo rm -rf /Applications/Ollama.app
sudo rm /usr/local/bin/ollama
rm -rf "~/Library/Application Support/Ollama"
rm -rf "~/Library/Saved Application State/com.electron.ollama.savedState"
rm -rf ~/Library/Caches/com.electron.ollama/
rm -rf ~/Library/Caches/ollama
rm -rf ~/Library/WebKit/com.electron.ollama
rm -rf ~/.ollama

The last line removes ~/.ollama, which holds your models.

Windows

The installer registers an uninstaller. Go to Settings, then Add or remove programs, and uninstall Ollama.
If you changed OLLAMA_MODELS, the uninstaller won't remove models in that folder. Delete them yourself.
Models and configuration live in %HOMEPATH%\.ollama.

Linux (standard install)

Stop and remove the service:
- sudo systemctl stop ollama
- sudo systemctl disable ollama
- sudo rm /etc/systemd/system/ollama.service
Remove the libraries: sudo rm -r $(which ollama | tr 'bin' 'lib').
Remove the binary: sudo rm $(which ollama).
Remove the models and the service user and group:
- sudo userdel ollama
- sudo groupdel ollama
- sudo rm -r /usr/share/ollama

Afterward

Check your disk space; see freeing up storage on a Mac or Windows Storage Sense. If you used Docker instead, remove the container and its volume; see Ollama in Docker.