How to uninstall Poe on Windows

Poe keeps your chats and bots in your Poe account, so they are still there on the web and your other devices after you remove the app. What stays on this PC is the app's settings, sign-in and caches. This guide covers Poe installed per-user from the installer in the Quora.Poe winget package.

Quit Poe first

Quit Poe, then check Task Manager (Ctrl+Shift+Esc) that no Poe.exe is still listed; it runs several of them at once. Poe adds a startup entry named Poe, which you can see in Settings › Apps › Startup.

Remove the app with its own uninstaller

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

winget uninstall --id Quora.Poe

The uninstaller removes the program and the desktop shortcut. In this test part of the program folder %LOCALAPPDATA%\Poe was still there afterwards, and the uninstaller left the data folder, the Start Menu folder named Quora, Inc, the poe-app:// link registration and the startup entry, which now points at the removed program.

Where the data lives

Location	What it holds	What to do
`%APPDATA%\Poe`	Settings, sign-in, caches and logs	Keep it if you might reinstall; remove it for a clean start
`%LOCALAPPDATA%\Poe`	What remains of the program folder	Safe to remove once the uninstall has finished
`%APPDATA%\Microsoft\Windows\Start Menu\Programs\Quora, Inc`	Poe's Start Menu folder	Safe to remove
The Poe startup entry (`HKCU\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Run`, value `com.squirrel.Poe.Poe`)	Starts the removed program at sign-in	Turn it off in Settings › Apps › Startup, or remove the value
`HKCU\Software\Classes\poe-app`	The `poe-app://` link registration	Safe to remove once the app is gone

Check the result

Run these read-only commands after the uninstall finishes:

Get-Process Poe -ErrorAction SilentlyContinue
winget list --id Quora.Poe
Test-Path "$env:LOCALAPPDATA\Poe"
Test-Path "$env:APPDATA\Poe"
Get-ItemProperty HKCU:\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Run -Name com.squirrel.Poe.Poe -ErrorAction SilentlyContinue
Test-Path HKCU:\Software\Classes\poe-app

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\Poe" returning True means your settings and sign-in are still there, which is expected unless you removed them yourself.
Get-ItemProperty returning values means the entry remains. With no output, check for permission or other query errors before deciding that it is absent.
The last Test-Path returning False means the link registration is gone; True means it is still there.

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 %APPDATA%\Poe, the startup entry or the link registration.

Account and subscription

Uninstalling does not cancel a Poe subscription or delete your account, chats or bots. Manage those in your Poe account settings.

What Mole lists

For Poe installed per-user from the winget package's installer:

The program folder goes with the app row. The desktop shortcut and the Quora, Inc Start Menu folder are selected by default.
%APPDATA%\Poe is listed but not selected, since it holds your settings and sign-in. The caches inside it (Cache, Code Cache, GPUCache, the Dawn shader caches and logs) are listed on their own and selected by default.
The com.squirrel.Poe.Poe startup entry and the poe-app:// link registration the uninstaller leaves behind are selected by default, each backed up to a .reg file before removal.
A row grouping Windows' own records of when you opened the program is selected by default.

What this test covered

Tested on September 29, 2026 with Poe 1.1.40 from the installer the winget package points to, per-user scope, installed from an elevated session on an ARM64 virtual machine. The uninstaller is Squirrel and ran silently. Every listed row was ticked and removed in this test. Not verified: signing in, and what a signed-in data folder holds.