How to Uninstall Microsoft Edge in 2020: Harder Than You’d Think

Although the Edge browser has seen some significant improvements with its new Chromium build, it’s still far from the best browser out there. Once you’ve changed to a different default browser, you’ll quickly find that removing Edge isn’t as easy as you’d think. Because of this, we’ve created this guide on how to uninstall Microsoft Edge.

If you’re one of the people wondering how to remove Microsoft Edge, there are three basic ways you can go about doing this, depending on the state of your system. We’ll cover these in turn below, but be warned that there is a chance that none of them will work for your computer, in which case you’ll have to settle for just disabling the browser.

Why Can’t I Uninstall Microsoft Edge From Windows 10?

For some reason, Microsoft has taken the stance that Microsoft Edge is a core part of the Windows operating system. Because of this, most of the ways you used to be able to remove Edge from Windows 10 have been disabled, making it very difficult to uninstall the browser.

Although there are still ways to get around it, which we’ll cover below, it’s worth mentioning once again that depending on what Windows update you have installed, it’s possible that none of them will work. If this is the case for you, you’ll have to disable Microsoft Edge rather than uninstall it. For instructions on how to do so, check out our guide on how to disable Microsoft Edge.

How to Uninstall Microsoft Edge With PowerShell

The best way to manually uninstall Edge from Windows 10 is to do it via PowerShell. If you’re unfamiliar with Windows PowerShell, it’s basically a command terminal with additional and more advanced functionality than your regular command prompt.

• Open the start menu
• Type “powershell” and right-click the icon that appears, then click “run as administrator”

• Type the command “get-appxpackage *edge*” (without the quotation marks) and press enter

• This will give you the details of the Edge application itself, including its location listed as “PackageFullName” — copy this value so that you can use it in the next step

• Type the command “remove-appxpackage” followed by the value you copied in the previous step, then press enter

• Reboot your computer

Now, this may not work, depending on what version of Windows 10 you’re using. Instead of Edge being removed, there’s a chance you’ll see an error message telling you that you can’t remove core components of the operating system.

If you get the error message shown above, this means that you won’t be able to completely uninstall Microsoft Edge, unless you had already done so prior to the release of the Chromium version. 

How to Remove Chromium Edge

To remove Chromium Edge from Windows 10, you’ll have to use the command terminal. This method should work for any version of Windows. However, bear in mind that if you hadn’t uninstalled the old version of Edge prior to the release of the Chromium build, then all that this command will do is uninstall the new Edge and roll you back to the old one.

• First you need to identify the version number of your Edge installation, which you can do by navigating to “C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft\Edge\Application\” where you should see at least one folder named something like “84.0.522.48”

• Now that you have the full path for your Edge installation, hit the Windows key
• Type “CMD” and right-click the Command Prompt app, then select “run as administrator”

• Type the command: cd “C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft\Edge\Application\84.0.522.48\Installer” (remember to replace the version number with the one you found in step one) and press enter

• Type the command: “setup.exe –uninstall –system-level –verbose-logging –force-uninstall” and press enter

This will uninstall the latest version of Edge. If you had already removed the old non-Chromium version of the browser, this means that it’s now been completely uninstalled. If you hadn’t already done that, you’ve now simply been downgraded to a non-Chromium version of the Edge browser.

How to Remove Edge on Windows XP, 7, 8 or 8.1

Performing a Microsoft Edge uninstall is a much simpler process if you’re using an older iteration of Windows.

• Press the Windows key
• Type “uninstall a program” and click on the matching search result

• Scroll down the list of programs until you find Microsoft Edge
• Click on the Edge entry and then the “uninstall” button

• Tick the box that says “also clear your browsing data?” in the window that pops up
• Click on the “uninstall” button in the new window

• Reboot your computer

Once your computer reboots, Edge will be gone for good.

Final Thoughts

At the end of the day, removing Microsoft Edge in Windows 10 is far harder than it should be. Although there are still some ways to get around all the hurdles and uninstall Edge, they won’t work for everyone. Even if you do manage to remove the browser, chances are good that a Windows update will come along and reinstall Microsoft Edge whether you like it or not.

If you’d like to learn more about what you can replace Edge with, check out our list of the best web browsers, where Vivaldi is the clear winner. For even more information about alternatives to Edge, you can head over to the rest of our browser reviews for a more in-depth look at each.

What did you think of our guide on how to uninstall Microsoft Edge? Is there a way to remove Microsoft Edge from Windows 10 that we didn’t cover? Did one of our methods not work for you? Let us know in the comments below. Thank you for reading.