How To Delete And Remove Repository In Ubuntu Terminal

How to remove ppa repository on Ubuntu Linux? To delete a repository in the Ubuntu terminal, use sudo add-apt-repository –remove ppa:user/repo-name for PPAs.

Personal Package Archives for Ubuntu

Personal Package Archives (PPA) is a way to distribute software and updates to Ubuntu users. PPAs allow to upload Ubuntu source packages to be built/published as an apt repository by Launchpad.

Using PPAs Ubuntu users can install PPA packages regularly. All they have to do is to install PPAs and they’ll automatically receive updates associated with the PPA. Once installed, PPA Packages remain onto Ubuntu System until it is removed manually or they’re superseded by another package.

In simplest way, to add a PPA, we run the following command:

$ sudo add-apt-repository ppa:PPA_NAME

Where “PPA_NAME” is the name of the Personal Package Archive (PPA) you wish to add or install.

Although installing a PPA is simple, removing PPA is quite confusing for many. Luckily there are more than one methods to remove PPAs from Ubuntu. Here’s how to do this:

Method 1: Using -remove Command

PPAs can be removed using add repository command with –remove parameter. The command removes the PPA from Ubuntu repository. This method removes PPA, but it doesn’t remove or downgrade any package that have been installed using the PPA. Which means, it will only remove the PPA, but not the software or package installed using the same PPA.

Using the add repository command with –remove parameter is easy. The command takes the following format:


$ sudo add-apt-repository --remove ppa:PPA_NAME/ppa

Like the above method, the command does not delete or modify any packages installed or upgraded using the PPA.

Method 2: Downgrading PPA Using ppa-purge

This is the strongest method to remove PPAs. Unlike others, the ppa-purge method will delete a PPA as well as all packages or softwares installed/upgraded using the PPA.

To use the ppa-purge command, you will need to install ppa-purge package. To do so, run the following command:


$ sudo apt-get install ppa-purge

Once installed, run the command to remove a PPA repository and all the packages installed using it. The command takes the following format:


$ sudo ppa-purge PPA_NAME

Last but not least, You can also remove PPAs by deleting the .list files from /etc/apt/sources.list.d directory.