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How to uninstall AutoHotkey on Windows

AutoHotkey itself keeps no personal settings folder; what matters are the .ahk scripts you wrote and any shortcut or startup entry that launches them. Neither is touched by removing AutoHotkey. This guide covers AutoHotkey installed machine-wide from the AutoHotkey.AutoHotkey winget package.

Quit AutoHotkey first

Right-click any AutoHotkey tray icon for a running script and exit it, then check Task Manager (Ctrl+Shift+Esc) for AutoHotkeyUX.exe or any of your own compiled scripts before you uninstall.

Back up your scripts first

Your .ahk scripts live wherever you saved them, not inside AutoHotkey's own program folder. Copy them, and note any shortcut, Startup-folder entry or scheduled task that runs one automatically, before you uninstall; none of that is removed by AutoHotkey's own uninstaller.

Remove the app with its own uninstaller

Go to Settings › Apps › Installed apps, find AutoHotkey, and choose Uninstall, or run:

winget uninstall --id AutoHotkey.AutoHotkey

Check the result

Run these read-only commands after the uninstall finishes:

Get-Process AutoHotkeyUX -ErrorAction SilentlyContinue
winget list --id AutoHotkey.AutoHotkey
Test-Path "$env:ProgramFiles\AutoHotkey"
  • No output from Get-Process only means this query observed no matching process; a suppressed error leaves the running state unknown.
  • A completed winget list query with no match means the package record is gone; a matching row means the uninstall did not finish.
  • Test-Path returning False means the program folder is gone; True means files remain there.

Your own .ahk scripts, wherever you saved them, are unaffected either way; check them separately.

If you installed it with winget

winget uninstall runs the same uninstaller Settings › Apps uses and removes the same program files and its two Start Menu shortcuts; it never touches your own scripts, since they live outside AutoHotkey's program folder.

What Mole lists

For AutoHotkey installed machine-wide from winget:

  • The program folder and both Start Menu shortcuts (AutoHotkey Dash and AutoHotkey Window Spy) are selected by default.
  • AutoHotkey has no data folder of its own, so nothing else appears in the review for a plain install.

Your .ahk scripts and any shortcut or startup entry you added to run them are never part of this list; remove those yourself.

What this test covered

Tested with AutoHotkey 2.0.28 installed through winget, machine-wide scope. No user script was created during the test, so a script's own shortcuts and startup entries were not exercised.