How to uninstall Notepad++ on Windows

Notepad++ keeps very little for itself: one settings folder and a small entry Windows 11 adds for its right-click menu. This guide covers Notepad++ installed machine-wide from the Notepad++.Notepad++ winget package; if you run the portable zip build instead, its settings live next to the executable, not in your profile, and are covered separately below.

Quit Notepad++ first

Close every Notepad++ window. It runs as a single process, so check Task Manager (Ctrl+Shift+Esc) for notepad++.exe if you are not sure a window is still open.

Remove the app with its own uninstaller

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

winget uninstall --id Notepad++.Notepad++

Notepad++ registers a silent-uninstall command with Windows, so either route runs quietly with no extra prompts. Its own uninstaller already removes the Start Menu shortcut and your settings folder as part of uninstalling; you do not need to delete them yourself afterward.

Where the data lives

Location	What it holds	What to do
`%APPDATA%\Notepad++`	`config.xml`, `session.xml`, shortcuts, custom color schemes	Removed by the uninstaller itself; back it up first if you want to keep your settings
`Notepad++` sparse package (Windows 11 right-click "Open with Notepad++")	The modern context-menu entry	Stays registered by the vendor after uninstalling; harmless, and there is no supported way to remove it separately

If you use the portable zip build, all of the files above live next to notepad++.exe instead, in whatever folder you extracted it to (a doLocalConf.xml marker file next to the executable is what turns portable mode on). Removing a portable install is just deleting that folder; there is nothing elsewhere to clean up.

Check the result

Run these read-only commands after the uninstall finishes:

Get-Process notepad++ -ErrorAction SilentlyContinue
winget list --id Notepad++.Notepad++
Test-Path "C:\Program Files\Notepad++"
Test-Path "$env:APPDATA\Notepad++"

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.
Test-Path "$env:APPDATA\Notepad++" returning False is expected: the vendor's own uninstaller removes this folder. True means either the uninstall did not finish or you had turned on cloud settings storage.

If you installed it with winget

winget uninstall runs the same silent uninstaller Settings › Apps uses and removes the same files, including the settings folder above.

What Mole lists

For Notepad++ installed machine-wide from winget:

The program folder goes with the app row, selected by default.
%APPDATA%\Notepad++, your settings and sessions, is listed but not selected when it is still there. In this test the vendor's uninstaller had already removed it, together with the Start Menu shortcut.
The Windows 11 right-click menu package Notepad++ registers stays registered after the uninstall and is not listed.

What this test covered

Tested with Notepad++ 8.9.8.1 installed machine-wide through winget on an ARM64 VM. Its uninstaller had a registered silent-uninstall command, which Mole used as registered. The sparse right-click package stayed registered afterwards. Not verified: the portable zip build, or a user-scope install.