Introduction

In this article, we will discuss the process of uninstalling a storefront theme in Magento 2.

The way theme should be uninstalled is defined by two factors:

• • The way the theme was added: manually added (installed or created)
  • Installed as composer package or as an extension.
  • The way Magento was installed: using the source files from GitHub or using Composer.

The following sections describe the flow for uninstalling themes in each case.

Prerequisites

There are following prerequisites :-

If you are performing this process on the production or staging site please take backup. Then start.

1. Set your Magento application to the developer or default mode.

To check the current mode:  php bin/magento deploy:mode:show
If mode is production then change it by using below command.

 php bin/magento deploy:mode:set default 

2. Theme should not be applied on the storefront

Make sure that the theme is not applied on the storefront. To do this, in the Admin panel navigate to Content > Design > Configuration and make sure that your custom theme is not applied for any store view.

3. Theme is not defined as a parent for any registered theme

Make sure that the theme is not defined as a parent for any registered theme.

To do this, in the Admin panel, navigate to Content > Design > Themes.

Make sure that your theme is not mentioned in the Parent Theme column. If it is mentioned, you need to uninstall the child theme first.

Uninstall the Manually Installed Theme

In case if your theme was created or installed manually, the uninstall procedure is the same, regardless the way Magento was installed.

To uninstall a manually added theme:

• 1. Navigate to the vendor directory where the theme was installed. This directory should be: <Magento root dir>/app/design/frontend/<VendorName>.
  2. Remove the theme directory.
  3. Delete all the content of folder var/view_preprocessed & pub/static/frontend.
  4. Go to your theme table and delete the entry of the theme which you want to uninstall.
  5. Run below command:-

php bin/magento setup:upgrade && php bin/magento setup:static-content:deploy -f && php bin/magento c:f

Solved – Unable to Load Theme by Specified Key Error in Magento 2

Uninstall Theme with Composer package

The flow for uninstalling a theme that is Composer package is different, depending on the way your Magento instance was installed.

To uninstall a theme Composer package if your Magento instance was installed by cloning the Git repository, you can also uninstall it using a CLI command. However, you must first remove it from the list of dependencies.

Take the following steps:

1. Open the <Magento root dir>/composer.json file.
2. Find a line with a reference to theme package and delete it. The reference would look like following:

   "require": { ... "<vendor>/<theme-name>": "<version>" },

3. To update the project dependencies, run: composer update

4. php bin/magento setup:static-content:deploy -f && php bin/magento c:f

5. Go to your theme table and delete the entry of the theme which you want to uninstall.

Conclusion

In this article, we have learned the steps for uninstalling theme which was installed manually and also with the composer package.

Please feel free to comment below for the feedback and any help. Happy Learning !!