How do I remove a library from the arduino environment?

Question

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 1

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.

Answer 2

Quote from official documentation as of August 2013:

User-created libraries as of version 0017 go in a subdirectory of your default sketch directory. For example, on OSX, the new directory would be ~/Documents/Arduino/libraries/. On Windows, it would be My Documents\Arduino\libraries\. To add your own library, create a new directory in the libraries directory with the name of your library. The folder should contain a C or C++ file with your code and a header file with your function and variable declarations. It will then appear in the Sketch | Import Library menu in the Arduino IDE.

To remove a library, stop the Arduino IDE and remove the library directory from the aforementioned location.