How to uninstall Zhipu Qingyan on Windows

Your 智谱清言 (Zhipu Qingyan, ChatGLM) conversations belong to your account, not to this PC, so check in the app or on chatglm.cn that the chats and generated files you need are there, and save any you want as files, before you start. Keep the documents you picked for analysis in their original folders; the app does not own them. In this test the uninstaller removed the app's own data folder %APPDATA%\chatglm together with the program, so anything you want from it has to be copied out first. This guide covers 智谱清言 installed per-user from the ZhipuAI.ChatGLM winget package. 智谱清言

Quit 智谱清言 first

Quit 智谱清言, then check Task Manager (Ctrl+Shift+Esc) that no 智谱清言.exe is still listed; it runs many of them at once. It also adds a startup entry named 智谱清言桌面客户端 in Settings › Apps › Startup, which starts it hidden at sign-in, so it can be running without a window. The uninstaller removed that entry in this test.

Remove the app with its own uninstaller

Go to Settings › Apps › Installed apps, find 智谱清言, and choose Uninstall, or run:

winget uninstall --id ZhipuAI.ChatGLM

The uninstaller removes the program files in %LOCALAPPDATA%\ZP\chatglm, the shortcuts, the startup entry and %APPDATA%\chatglm. It leaves the downloaded updates, an empty %LOCALAPPDATA%\ZP\chatglm folder, and a new empty %APPDATA%\ZPHZ\chatglm folder it creates while uninstalling.

Where the data lives

Check the result

Run these read-only commands after the uninstall finishes:

Get-Process 智谱清言 -ErrorAction SilentlyContinue
winget list --id ZhipuAI.ChatGLM
Test-Path "$env:APPDATA\chatglm"
Test-Path "$env:LOCALAPPDATA\chatglm-updater"
Get-ChildItem "$env:LOCALAPPDATA\ZP", "$env:APPDATA\ZPHZ" -Recurse -File -ErrorAction SilentlyContinue

• No output from Get-Process only means this query observed no matching process; a suppressed error leaves the running state unknown. A listed process means it is still open, possibly without a window.
• 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 "$env:APPDATA\chatglm" returning False means the data folder is gone; True means it survived and is yours to keep or remove.
• Test-Path "$env:LOCALAPPDATA\chatglm-updater" returning True means downloaded updates are still there; they are safe to remove.
• An empty Get-ChildItem result cannot distinguish empty, absent or unreadable ZP and ZPHZ folders; a listed file means something still lives there, so look at it before removing anything.

If you installed it with winget

winget uninstall runs the same uninstaller Settings › Apps uses and removes the same things; it does not remove chatglm-updater or the empty folders.

Account

Uninstalling does not delete your 智谱清言 account, its conversation history or the documents you uploaded. Manage or delete those in the service itself.

What Mole lists

For 智谱清言 installed per-user from winget:

• The Start Menu and desktop shortcuts are selected by default.
• %LOCALAPPDATA%\chatglm-updater, which holds only downloaded update installers, is selected by default.
• %APPDATA%\chatglm is listed but not selected, since it holds your app data and settings.
• The program folder under %LOCALAPPDATA%\ZP is not listed as a row of its own; the uninstaller removes its files.
• The empty %LOCALAPPDATA%\ZP\chatglm and %APPDATA%\ZPHZ\chatglm folders are not listed; check them and remove them yourself.

What this test covered

Tested on 2026-09-29 with 智谱清言 2.0.6, the x86 installer from the winget package, per-user scope, installed from an elevated session. The uninstaller is NSIS and ran silently. Every listed row was ticked and removed in this test, and the two empty folders stayed. Not verified: signing in, and what a signed-in data folder holds.