How to uninstall Handy on Windows

Handy is an open-source speech-to-text app that runs its models on your own PC. Its settings and the speech models you downloaded live in %APPDATA%\com.pais.handy, which the uninstaller leaves in place, so if you might reinstall, keep that folder or at least its models subfolder, since models are large downloads. Handy's settings show the exact folder under About › App Data Directory. This guide covers Handy installed per-user from the cjpais.Handy winget package. Handy on GitHub

Quit Handy first

Quit Handy, then check Task Manager (Ctrl+Shift+Esc) that no handy.exe is still listed before you uninstall. In this test it added no startup entry.

Remove the app with its own uninstaller

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

winget uninstall --id cjpais.Handy

The uninstaller removes the program files in %LOCALAPPDATA%\Handy and the shortcuts, and leaves Handy's data folders and registry key.

Where the data lives

Location	What it holds	What to do
`%APPDATA%\com.pais.handy`	Settings, and downloaded speech models in `models`	Keep it if you might reinstall; remove it for a clean start
`%LOCALAPPDATA%\com.pais.handy`	Local app data and `logs`	Safe to remove once you are done with Handy
`HKCU\Software\pais\Handy`	Handy's install record	Safe to remove
`HKCU\Software\pais`	Empty once `Handy` under it is gone	Safe to remove when it is empty

Check the result

Run these read-only commands after the uninstall finishes:

Get-Process handy -ErrorAction SilentlyContinue
winget list --id cjpais.Handy
Test-Path "$env:LOCALAPPDATA\Handy"
Test-Path "$env:APPDATA\com.pais.handy"
Test-Path HKCU:\Software\pais\Handy
Get-ChildItem HKCU:\Software\pais -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.
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\com.pais.handy" returning True means your settings and models are still there, which is expected unless you removed them yourself.
Test-Path HKCU:\Software\pais\Handy returning True means the install record is still there; False means it is gone.
An empty Get-ChildItem result cannot distinguish an empty, absent or unreadable HKCU\Software\pais key; a listed key means another app from the same publisher still uses it.

If you installed it with winget

winget uninstall runs the same uninstaller Settings › Apps uses and removes the same program files; it does not touch the com.pais.handy folders or the registry key on its own.

What Mole lists

For Handy installed per-user from winget:

The program folder %LOCALAPPDATA%\Handy goes with the app row. The Start Menu and desktop shortcuts are selected by default.
%APPDATA%\com.pais.handy and %LOCALAPPDATA%\com.pais.handy are listed but not selected, since they may hold your settings and models. The logs folder inside the second one is listed on its own and selected by default.
HKCU\Software\pais\Handy is listed but not selected, and is backed up to a .reg file before removal.
A row grouping Windows' own records of when you opened the program is selected by default.
The empty HKCU\Software\pais left after that is not listed; check it and remove it yourself.

What this test covered

Tested on 2026-09-29 with Handy 0.9.7, the arm64 installer from the winget package, per-user scope, installed from an elevated session. The uninstaller is NSIS and was run silently. Every listed row was ticked and removed in this test, and the empty HKCU\Software\pais key stayed. No speech model was downloaded, so removing a model library was not verified.