How to remove RVM (Ruby Version Manager) from my system How to remove RVM (Ruby Version Manager) from my system ruby ruby

How to remove RVM (Ruby Version Manager) from my system


There's a simple command built-in that will pull it:

rvm implode

This will remove the rvm/ directory and all the rubies built within it. In order to remove the final trace of rvm, you need to remove the rvm gem, too, if you installed that:

gem uninstall rvm

There may be elements left over from a Homebrew, Apt or DNF install of it that require removal as well. This depends on how you installed it in the first place. That clean-up step is optional, as RVM will no longer be involved in Ruby, but can help keep things organized.

If you've made modifications to your PATH you might want to pull those, too. Check your .bashrc, .profile and .bash_profile files, among other things.

You may also have an /etc/rvmrc file, or one in your home directory ~/.rvmrc that may need to be removed as well.


If the other answers don’t remove RVM throughly enough for you, RVM’s Troubleshooting page contains this section:

How do I completely clean out all traces of RVM from my system, including for system wide installs?

Here is a custom script which we name as cleanout-rvm. While you can definitely use rvm implode as a regular user or rvmsudo rvm implode for a system wide install, this script is useful as it steps completely outside of RVM and cleans out RVM without using RVM itself, leaving no traces.

#!/bin/bash/usr/bin/sudo rm -rf $HOME/.rvm $HOME/.rvmrc /etc/rvmrc /etc/profile.d/rvm.sh /usr/local/rvm /usr/local/bin/rvm/usr/bin/sudo /usr/sbin/groupdel rvm/bin/echo "RVM is removed. Please check all .bashrc|.bash_profile|.profile|.zshrc for RVM source lines and deleteor comment out if this was a Per-User installation."


When using implode and you see:

Psychologist intervened, cancelling implosion, crisis avoided :)

Then you may want to use --force

rvm implode --force

Then remove RVM from the following locations:

rm -rf /usr/local/rvmsudo rm /etc/profile.d/rvm.shsudo rm /etc/rvmrcsudo rm ~/.rvmrc

Check the following files and remove or comment out references to RVM:

~/.bashrc ~/.bash_profile ~/.profile ~/.zshrc~/.zlogin

Comment-out/remove the following lines from /etc/profile:

 source /etc/profile.d/sm.sh source /etc/profile.d/rvm.sh

/etc/profile is a read-only file so use:

sudo vim /etc/profile

And after making the change write using a bang!

:w!

Finally re-login/restart your terminal.