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Uninstalling Bee

Choose the appropriate uninstallation method based on how Bee was installed:

Package Manager​

This method can be used for package manager based installs of the official Debian, RPM, and Homebrew packages.

danger

Uninstalling Bee will permanently delete your keyfiles and configuration. Ensure you have a full backup before proceeding.

Debian​

To uninstall Bee and completely remove all associated files including keys and configuration, run:

sudo apt-get purge bee

RPM​

sudo yum remove bee

Shell Script / Binary Install​

If Bee was installed using the automated shell script or as a binary by building from source, it can be uninstalled by manually removing the installed binary, configuration files, and data directories.

Identify Data and Config Locations​

The shell script install method may result in slightly different default data and configuration locations based on your system. The easiest way to find these locations is to check the default configuration using the bee printconfig command:

bee printconfig

The output from this command contains several dozen default configuration values, however we only include the two we need in the example output below, config and data-dir. These will reveal the default locations for the configuration files and data directory according to our specific system.

Your output should look similar to this:

# config file (default is $HOME/.bee.yaml)
config: /home/noah/.bee.yaml
# data directory
data-dir: /home/noah/.bee

Remove Configuration Files​

Bee does not automatically generate a configuration file, but it looks for one at $HOME/.bee.yaml by default.

Check for Configuration Files​

Default location for shell script installs:

ls -l $HOME/.bee.yaml

Remove Configuration Files​

If the files exist, remove them:

rm -f $HOME/.bee.yaml

Verify Removal​

Run the following commands to ensure the configuration files have been deleted:

ls -l $HOME/.bee.yaml

If the command returns "No such file or directory", the configuration file has been successfully removed.

caution

If you have generated a config file and saved it to a non default location which you specify when starting your node using a command line flag (--config) or environment variable (BEE_CONFIG), then it is up to you to keep track of where you saved it and remove it yourself.

Remove Data Files​

Bee stores its node data, blockchain state, and other persistent files in a data directory. If you want to fully remove Bee, this directory must be deleted. The data directory default location differs based on install method and system type.

Verify Uninstallation​

To confirm that Bee has been fully uninstalled, run:

command -v bee

If Bee is still installed, this command will return the binary path (e.g., /usr/bin/bee). If it returns nothing, Bee has been successfully uninstalled.