The Google Chrome web browser has become the main browser for casual use for many people. I myself keep it installed on all my computers and use it for all my daily activities. Only on my Linux computers, I have Mozilla Firefox installed. One of the problems that one of my coworkers came across is that he could not remove an extension from the Chrome web browser because it did not even show up on the chrome://extension page. For such misbehaving extensions, you have to manually delete the files belonging to that extension to get rid of it. Here is how you can manually remove an extension or theme from Chrome web browser:
- Press Win+R to open the Run dialog, copy/paste the following and press Enter.
%LocalAppData%\Google\Chrome\User Data\Default\Extensions
- In the folder that opens you will see multiple folders that have names corresponding to the extension id’s on Chrome Web Store. Select a folder, press F2 followed by Ctrl+C to copy that folder’s name. Now go to Google and search for the folder name to find which Chrome extension it belongs to. For example, a folder named “ppbaibkigenhdcommebegmmmpoolmpip” belongs to a theme “Eiffel Tower”.
- When you find the folder belonging to an extension that you want to remove, just select it and press the Del key to delete it.
- Relaunch Chrome web browser and you will see that the deleted extensions have disappeared from Chrome settings (chrome://extensions).
You should not use this method if you can remove the extension using the regular method. It is always better to let the intended program handle the process in its own way. You should use this technique only if the regular extension removal method is not working or an extension is very hard to remove. This same method can be used to remove both the extensions and the themes in the Google Chrome web browser.