How do I remove a library from the arduino environment?

arduino arduino-ide
merlin2011 picture merlin2011 · May 25, 2013 · Viewed 212.7k times · Source

In the Arduino GUI on windows, if I click on Sketch --> Import Library, at the bottom of the menu there is a section called "Contributed".

Unfortunately, I had misclicked and added a library I did not want to that list.

How can I remove it from that list?

The help page only mentions that "If a sketch no longer needs a library, simply delete its #include statements from the top of your code" but it does not mention how to remove the library from the list of contributed libraries.

Answer

spring picture spring · May 26, 2013

Go to your Arduino documents directory; inside you will find a directory named "Libraries". The imported library directory will be there. Just delete it and restart the Arduino app.

Your Arduino library folder should look like this (on Windows):

  My Documents\Arduino\libraries\ArduinoParty\ArduinoParty.cpp
  My Documents\Arduino\libraries\ArduinoParty\ArduinoParty.h
  My Documents\Arduino\libraries\ArduinoParty\examples
  ....

or like this (on Mac and Linux):

  Documents/Arduino/libraries/ArduinoParty/ArduinoParty.cpp
  Documents/Arduino/libraries/ArduinoParty/ArduinoParty.h
  Documents/Arduino/libraries/ArduinoParty/examples

The only issue with unused libraries is the trivial amount of disk space they use. They aren't loaded automatically so don't take up any application memory of the Arduino IDE.

Related questions

Arduino Tools > Serial Port greyed out

I am running Debian 7 (Linux Crunchbang) and wanted to use The Arduino IDE to program my Arduino UNO. To do that I installed the package arduino. When I started the Arduino I was asked to add my user to the …

Read More
correct way to include .cpp and .h files in an Arduino sketch

First, the problem: main sketch file: char foo; // required to clean up some other problems #include <Arduino.h> // tried it in desperation, no help #include "a.h" void setup(){ Serial.begin(9600); Serial.println("\nTest begins"); for (int num = …

Read More
What is the secret of the arduino `yield()`function?

The Arduino docs explain yield() at https://www.arduino.cc/en/Reference/Scheduler with regards to the Due. Apparently it is part of the Scheduler library: #include <Scheduler.h> However, I can call yield() on my Nano or …

Read More