How do you remove MacPorts and all the packages it has installed?

I have installed MacPorts on my Mac OS X Lion, and I would like to remove it. There should be no more trace of MacPorts?

Is there a way to do this?

user893730

Posted 2011-12-13T08:01:43.690

Reputation: 1 097

Answers

From the manual, uninstalling MacPorts works as follows. You need to first uninstall all ports:

sudo port -fp uninstall --follow-dependents installed

If port is not found, try /opt/local/bin/port instead.

Also, to remove remainders of MacPorts, you will need to delete the following files by this single command (copy and paste line-by-line to Terminal):

sudo rm -rf /opt/local 
sudo rm -rf /Applications/DarwinPorts 
sudo rm -rf /Applications/MacPorts 
sudo rm -rf /Library/LaunchDaemons/org.macports.* 
sudo rm -rf /Library/Receipts/DarwinPorts*.pkg 
sudo rm -rf /Library/Receipts/MacPorts*.pkg 
sudo rm -rf /Library/StartupItems/DarwinPortsStartup 
sudo rm -rf /Library/Tcl/darwinports1.0 
sudo rm -rf /Library/Tcl/macports1.0 
sudo rm -rf ~/.macports

Warning: Don't run a sudo command—especially a rm -rf one—unless you know what it's doing, and enter each line individually if you're unsure.

Note that MacPorts creates its own user and user group. They can be removed, too. See this answer over on Ask Different for more info.

Finally, each port installed through MacPorts may again create its own user and group, so you may have to perform a manual cleanup.

slhck

Posted 2011-12-13T08:01:43.690

Reputation: 182 472

Note that macports also creates its own user and group (see https://trac.macports.org/ticket/31013 ) and removing them is described over in https://apple.stackexchange.com/questions/317576/how-to-delete-macports-user-after-using-the-migration-assistant . Also note that installed ports may themselves may create new users and groups...

– Anon – 2018-09-27T08:53:25.287

@Anon Wow, what a mess, glad that I switched to Homebrew years ago. – slhck – 2018-09-27T10:00:29.600

@slhck ... :-) Could you add a note to your answer that there might still be a left over macports user and group after your uninstall steps if you think it might help someone? – Anon – 2018-09-27T12:35:03.777

@Anon Sure, done! – slhck – 2018-09-27T13:10:23.277

I did this and: $ brew doctor gives: Warning: Setting DYLD_LIBRARY_PATH can break dynamic linking. You should probably unset it. – Devin G Rhode – 2012-11-09T08:22:25.090

Interesting. Did you ever set it? Like, in the bash profile, bashrc, etc? – slhck – 2012-11-09T08:45:51.523

No, BRAND NEW OS install too, this is something macports did, I think. However, echo $DYLD_LIBRARY_PATH spits out paths to a mysql binary – Devin G Rhode – 2012-11-09T16:57:10.963

It could have also been some rake or rails stuff, but I highly doubt it. – Devin G Rhode – 2012-11-09T16:57:39.760

Hm, unfortunately I've never used MacPorts so I'm not quite familiar with it, but setting the DYLD_LIBRARY_PATH for MySQL is pretty common indeed and probably required (?). You're not running Homebrew and MacPorts parallely, are you? In any case, it's just a warning, so unless you encounter specific errors it's best to leave it as-is. That being said, you should probably unset DYLD_LIBRARY_PATH if you really don't need it. I'm pretty sure it's in some way connected to MySQL or your .bashrc, .profile, etc. since this isn't set by default. – slhck – 2012-11-09T17:49:42.300

what about getting rid of /opt/local?? – Chet – 2014-04-15T00:38:52.423

@Chet The above commands will remove said directory. – slhck – 2014-04-15T05:02:00.230

isn't there stuff in there besides macports? – Chet – 2014-04-15T07:23:48.527

1@Chet Unless you put something there, no. /opt/ does not even exist in a default OS X installation, so you can safely remove it. – slhck – 2014-04-15T07:24:36.690

This guide helped me remove MacPorts: http://bitboxer.de/2010/06/03/moving-from-macports-to-homebrew/

Here's a summary (in case the link goes dead): First, uninstall MacPorts:

sudo port -f uninstall installed

Second step: remove everything that is left from MacPorts (check for MySQL and other stuff in /opt/local first):

sudo rm -rf /opt/local
sudo rm -rf /Applications/DarwinPorts
sudo rm -rf /Applications/MacPorts
sudo rm -rf /Library/LaunchDaemons/org.macports.*
sudo rm -rf /Library/Receipts/DarwinPorts*.pkg
sudo rm -rf /Library/Receipts/MacPorts*.pkg
sudo rm -rf /Library/StartupItems/DarwinPortsStartup
sudo rm -rf /Library/Tcl/darwinports1.0
sudo rm -rf /Library/Tcl/macports1.0
sudo rm -rf ~/.macports

After that you should remove the /opt/local/bin from your $PATH

Quentin

Posted 2011-12-13T08:01:43.690

Reputation: 171

Separate the sudo rm -rf long command into serveral short command works really good for me. – Kevin Tong – 2014-09-03T16:15:20.477

@frumbert I know it has been 2 years since your comment date. However for further reference, let me tell my story. Macports was running on my OSX Yosemite system which I upgraded to El Capitan. Then, I decided to remove macports completely. For this, I reinstalled macports for El Capitan, then I followed what is told in the above answer. Hope this can help someone ;-) – Lashae – 2015-12-30T16:10:58.987

3Can you summarize what is at the link in your answer in case the link goes dead? – jonsca – 2013-08-13T07:15:09.080

2Everywhere I look, there's "if you have a working port command, then use sudo port blah". What if, like in my case, port isn't working? – frumbert – 2013-12-02T21:27:00.127

Does this help: http://stackoverflow.com/questions/9694395/sudo-port-command-not-found ?

– Quentin – 2013-12-02T21:59:00.763