Ubuntu – How to completely remove MySQL from the system

20.04MySQLuninstall

I want to completely remove MySQL from my system, including databases, settings, logs, journals, etc.

How can I do it?

Update/Note: The MySQL was installed using the following terminal commands:

sudo apt update
sudo apt install mysql-server
sudo mysql_secure_installation

OS Name: Ubuntu 20.04.1 LTS
OS Mode: Live USB drive with persistent storage
MySQL version: mysql Ver 8.0.20

Best Answer

As you already know how you installed it and what version you're working with, you can do the following:

Stop the MySQL service:

sudo systemctl stop mysqld

Purge MySQL, databases, and configurations:

sudo apt purge mysql-server mysql-common mysql-server-core-* mysql-client-core-*

Remove any additional database files:

sudo rm -rf /var/lib/mysql/

The folder where the configuration was and any stranglers:

sudo rm -rf /etc/mysql/

Clean the logs:

sudo rm -rf /var/log/mysql

Delete the user-generated during installation:

sudo deluser --remove-home mysql

Finally, get rid of the usergroup that was created during installation:

sudo delgroup mysql

That should get rid of everything. If you installed a third-party PPA in order to install MySQL then you'll need to remove that.

sudo add-apt-repository --remove ppa:theppayouused/ppa

And that should be everything related to MySQL and nothing else.

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