Learn to Remove PostgreSQL

Occasionally, during software installation, an issue arises and you discover that the entire program hasn’t been downloaded or that the installation was stopped for an unknown reason, leaving you with empty directories and partial data. Although it happens infrequently, it is possible that it will occasionally. This raises the question: is it possible to remove newly installed software entirely?

This tutorial will guide you on safely removing PostgreSQL from Ubuntu 16.04 server.

It is important to back up any databases that you may need, prior to deleting anything from your system.

Step 1: List the PostgreSQL Packages

Using the dpkg tool, list the packages pertaining to the PostgreSQL setup.

dpkg -l | grep postgres

Output:

Step 2: Delete the PostgreSQL Packages

In Step 1, you can see all of the software packages related to the PostgreSQL install. For removing and deleting them all with one command, use the below remove command:
apt-get –purge remove command

Below the command mention the name of each package indicated separated with a space. Here for a particular version of PostgreSQL, the software installed was:

• pgdg-keyring
• postgresql-10
• postgresql-client-10
• postgresql-client-common
• postgresql-common

Hence, here the purge remove command will look as below:

sudo apt-get --purge remove pgdg-keyring postgresql-10 postgresql-client-10 postgresql-client-common postgresql-common

Step 3: Verifying the Deletion of PostgreSQL

After removing these packages, you won’t be able to enter into the PostgreSQL environment. This can be verified by running the grep command again and searching for postgres:

root@newclient:~# dpkg -l | grep postgres
root@newclient:~#

You shouldn’t get any output from that command and this means, PostgreSQL has been uninstalled successfully!

In this way, you can remove PostgreSQL.

Learn to Create a PostgreSQL Database