Clean up the applications natively installed on your PC under Windows 11 by deleting them from the dedicated menu or by forcing the uninstallation of the most recalcitrant using the Windows Terminal.
Windows 11 comes with a number of apps by default. Even if you will find software in the package that will be useful to you in your daily use, it’s a safe bet that you will not, if ever, use some of them. Therefore, to prevent unused software from cluttering your machine, you can uninstall it.
Unfortunately, not everything is so simple. If Microsoft offers for a number of programs an option to uninstall them easily, other native applications cannot, in theory, be uninstalled. At least not as easily as one might hope. However, there is a solution to get rid of it: by using the OS Terminal. Here’s everything you need to know to uninstall native apps from Windows 11.
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1. Delete native apps from the context menu
First solution to uninstall native applications, use the right-click context menu.
To do this, click on the Start menu and then on All applications to display the list of software installed on your computer. Right-click on a native application then select Uninstall.
Then click on the Uninstall button to validate the deletion of the application.
2. Delete apps from Settings
You can also uninstall Windows 11 apps from the operating system’s Settings.
Use the Windows + i shortcut to open Settings, select Apps in the left column, and enter the Apps & features menu.
Scroll down the list of apps, then click on the three little dots displayed to the right of the app you want to get rid of. Finally click on Uninstall to remove the application.
3. Uninstall stubborn apps with Terminal
Among the applications natively present on Windows 11, some cannot be uninstalled easily. If the Uninstall option is not offered or is grayed out on the application you want to remove (this is the case for Maps or Cortana, for example), you must go through the Windows Terminal using the command winget to force uninstall it.
To get started, right-click on the Start menu to open Windows Terminal in Administrator mode.
Then type winget list to display the list of applications installed on your machine.
If you are using winget for the first time, you will need to accept the terms of service. Then press the Y key on the keyboard to accept (Y for Yes) and press the Enter key on the keyboard to validate. The list of applications installed on your PC should then appear.
Then locate the name of the program to be deleted in the first column, on the left, and write it down, respecting exactly what is written, the names proposed may be different from those displayed from the Start menu.
To uninstall an application, enter the command winget uninstall followed by the name of your application and validate by pressing the Enter key on the keyboard.
You should get a command like the following:
uninstaller application_name
If your application name is made up of several words, enclose it in quotes. To uninstall Windows Maps for example, the command will be winget uninstall “Windows Maps”.
Repeat the operation as many times as necessary for all the applications you want to remove from your machine.