How to uninstall Flow Launcher on Windows

Flow Launcher keeps your plugin settings and theme in a data folder that its uninstaller does not touch. Back it up first if you might reinstall. This guide covers Flow Launcher installed per-user from the Flow-Launcher.Flow-Launcher winget package.

Quit Flow Launcher first

Close Flow Launcher's window if it is open, then check Task Manager (Ctrl+Shift+Esc) for Flow.Launcher.exe before you uninstall. It normally starts from your own Start Menu shortcut, not a background service.

Remove the app with its own uninstaller

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

winget uninstall --id Flow-Launcher.Flow-Launcher

Back up before you remove data

Copy %APPDATA%\FlowLauncher if you want to keep your plugin settings and theme for a later reinstall.

Where the data lives

Check the result

Run these read-only commands after the uninstall finishes:

Get-Process Flow.Launcher -ErrorAction SilentlyContinue
winget list --id Flow-Launcher.Flow-Launcher
Test-Path "$env:LOCALAPPDATA\FlowLauncher"
Test-Path "$env:APPDATA\FlowLauncher"

• 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.
• The first Test-Path returning False means the program folder is gone; True means files remain there.
• Test-Path "$env:APPDATA\FlowLauncher" returning True means your plugin settings are still there, which is expected unless you removed them yourself.

If you installed it with winget

winget uninstall runs the same Squirrel uninstaller Settings › Apps uses and removes the same program files; it does not touch %APPDATA%\FlowLauncher on its own.

What Mole lists

For Flow Launcher installed per-user from winget:

• The program folder and the Start Menu shortcut are selected by default.
• %APPDATA%\FlowLauncher is listed but not selected, since it holds your plugin settings; the Cache and logs folders inside it are listed on their own and selected by default.
• A COM registration Flow Launcher's notifications use is selected by default and backed up to a .reg file before it is removed.

What this test covered

Tested with Flow Launcher 2.1.3 installed per-user. The installer's own network source was unreachable in the test environment, so the test ran the same installer package with a silent switch from an elevated session instead of through winget install directly; the uninstall path and the registry keys it leaves behind are unaffected by that. Not verified: a machine-wide install.