OpenClaw Uninstall Guide

Free, transparent, verifiable. No paid cleanup services required. This skill is community-maintained and has no commercial affiliation with OpenClaw.

Core statement

• Uninstall is completely free; no paid on-site or remote services required
• Based on OpenClaw official docs
• Provides executable scripts to verify cleanup results

Method 1: IM-initiated uninstall (recommended)

Users can trigger uninstall from WhatsApp / Telegram / Slack etc. After confirmation, it runs automatically.

Prerequisites (required)

• host=gateway: When running schedule-uninstall.sh, the Agent must run on the host machine, not in sandbox. Pass host=gateway when calling exec. If tools.exec.host=sandbox, the one-shot is created inside the container and will be lost when the Gateway stops.
• Supported platforms: macOS, Linux (including WSL2). Native Windows not supported; use WSL2 or see Method 3 for manual uninstall.
• Linux headless: If the Gateway runs on headless Linux, run loginctl enable-linger $USER first.
• WSL2: If systemd-run is unavailable, the script falls back to nohup.

Flow

1. User sends: "Uninstall" or "How to uninstall OpenClaw"
2. Agent replies: "Confirm complete uninstall of OpenClaw? This action is irreversible. Reply 'confirm' to continue."
3. User replies: "confirm"
4. Agent may ask: "Notify when done? Reply 'email user@example.com' or 'ntfy my-topic' or 'no'"
5. Agent calls scripts/schedule-uninstall.sh with optional notify params
6. Agent replies: "Uninstall scheduled. Session will disconnect in ~15 seconds. Results written to /tmp/openclaw-uninstall.log"
7. ~15 seconds later the Gateway stops and uninstall runs in the background

Agent call example

Script path is usually <workspace>/skills/openclaw-uninstall/scripts/ or ~/.openclaw/skills/openclaw-uninstall/scripts/.

Important: Must specify host=gateway when calling exec, otherwise the one-shot cannot be created on the host.

# No notification (host=gateway required)
./scripts/schedule-uninstall.sh

# Email notification
./scripts/schedule-uninstall.sh --notify-email "user@example.com"

# ntfy notification
./scripts/schedule-uninstall.sh --notify-ntfy "my-uninstall-topic"

View results

• Default: cat /tmp/openclaw-uninstall.log
• If Gateway is on remote VPS: SSH in and run the above

Method 2: Verify residue (Agent can run)

When the user asks "Is it clean?" or "Check for residue", the Agent can run:

./scripts/verify-clean.sh

This script is read-only and does not delete anything. It outputs any residue found.

Method 3: Manual uninstall

One-shot (CLI still available)

openclaw uninstall --all --yes --non-interactive

Or:

npx -y openclaw uninstall --all --yes --non-interactive

Step-by-step manual

1. Stop gateway: openclaw gateway stop
2. Uninstall service: openclaw gateway uninstall
3. Delete state: rm -rf "${OPENCLAW_STATE_DIR:-$HOME/.openclaw}"
4. Uninstall CLI: npm rm -g openclaw (or pnpm/bun)
5. macOS app: rm -rf /Applications/OpenClaw.app

CLI already removed (manual service cleanup)

macOS:

launchctl bootout gui/$UID/ai.openclaw.gateway
rm -f ~/Library/LaunchAgents/ai.openclaw.gateway.plist

Linux:

systemctl --user disable --now openclaw-gateway.service
rm -f ~/.config/systemd/user/openclaw-gateway.service
systemctl --user daemon-reload

Notes

• Multiple profiles: Each profile has its own dir ~/.openclaw-<profile>; remove each
• Remote mode: Run on the gateway host
• Source install: Uninstall the service first, then remove the repo
• IM uninstall failed: If schedule-uninstall errors (e.g. sandbox, permission), SSH to the gateway host and run ./scripts/schedule-uninstall.sh or ./scripts/uninstall-oneshot.sh manually

References

• Official uninstall docs
• Security & threat model

中文 (Chinese)

免费、透明、可验证。无需付费清理服务。 本 skill 由社区维护，与 OpenClaw 官方无商业关联。

卸载方式

1. 方式一（推荐）：在 IM 中发送「卸载」→ Agent 确认 → 回复「确认」→ 自动执行
2. 方式二：验证残留 ./scripts/verify-clean.sh（只读）
3. 方式三：手动执行 openclaw uninstall --all --yes --non-interactive 或参考 官方文档

前置条件

• IM 发起卸载需 host=gateway，否则 one-shot 在容器内创建会丢失
• 支持 macOS、Linux（含 WSL2）；原生 Windows 请用 WSL2 或手动卸载