Uninstalling Frost

Frost has no uninstall command, but removing it takes a few steps.

Uninstalling Frost doesn't delete your backups. If you might want them back one day, make sure you have your recovery phrase before you delete the key on this computer. frost key show prints it.

#1. Remove the scheduled job

frost config set schedule.enabled false

This removes the job from your operating system's scheduler. If Frost says the job is removed once the running backup finishes, wait for that backup to finish before the next step. Until it has, frost status says a backup or restore operation is already in progress. On Linux with systemd, it also turns lingering back off if Frost recorded turning it on.

#2. Delete Frost's files

This deletes the application, its launcher, your settings, your key and Frost's cache. If you changed a location, adjust the paths below to Frost's own files and folders. FROST_CONFIG_DIR and FROST_CACHE_DIR name Frost's folders directly; XDG_CONFIG_HOME, XDG_CACHE_HOME and XDG_DATA_HOME contain a frost subfolder. Never delete an XDG root or a shared folder itself. Files and folders lists every location.

On macOS:

rm -rf ~/Library/Application\ Support/frost ~/.config/frost ~/.cache/frost
rm -f /usr/local/bin/frost ~/.local/bin/frost

On Linux:

rm -rf ~/.local/share/frost ~/.config/frost ~/.cache/frost
rm -f /usr/local/bin/frost ~/.local/bin/frost

On Windows, in PowerShell:

Remove-Item -Recurse -Force "$env:LOCALAPPDATA\frost", "$env:APPDATA\frost"
Remove-Item -Force "$HOME\bin\frost", "$HOME\bin\frost.cmd" -ErrorAction SilentlyContinue

The Windows installer also added %LocalAppData%\frost\bin to your PATH. This takes it out again:

$environment = [Microsoft.Win32.Registry]::CurrentUser.OpenSubKey('Environment', $true)
$path = $environment.GetValue('Path', '', 'DoNotExpandEnvironmentNames') -split ';' | Where-Object { $_ -and [Environment]::ExpandEnvironmentVariables($_).TrimEnd('\') -ne "$env:LOCALAPPDATA\frost\bin" }
$environment.SetValue('Path', ($path -join ';'), 'ExpandString')

If you installed the launcher somewhere else, delete it from there. If you installed with npm or pnpm, remove the package as well:

npm uninstall -g getfrost
pnpm remove -g getfrost

#3. Delete your backups, if you want to

Your backups stay in your storage until you delete them. On a self-hosted server or a local drive, they're in the folder you chose in setup. In an S3 bucket, they're in one folder of the bucket, frost unless you chose another. Delete that folder to remove them. Without your recovery phrase, nobody can read what's left in it.