Starting with Blender 4.5, add-on developers can provide their developments to users in two formats: both traditional add-ons and new extensions. While the average user might not notice these internal format differences when installing and working with add-ons and extensions, some confusion can arise when an add-on or extension needs to be removed.
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Confusion often arises because both add-ons and extensions appear together in the list of installed add-ons.
If we open the “Preferences” area and switch to the “Add-ons” tab, we’ll see both installed add-ons and installed extensions in the list.
If we switch to the “Get Extensions” tab, we’ll only see extensions.
Removing Add-ons
If the developer provided his code in the old format, as an add-on, everything here remains the same, and nothing has changed.
To remove a selected add-on:
- Open the “Preferences” area
- Switch to the “Add-ons” tab
- Find the add-on and expand its description
- To remove an add-on, click the “Uninstall” button in the upper right corner of the add-on description
We can also remove the selected add-on programmatically using the Blender Python API.
To do this, execute the following command:
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bpy.ops.preferences.addon_remove(module='_ADD_ON_ID_') |
In the _ADD_ON_ID_ parameter, pass the id of the add-on to be removed.
Removing Extensions
If the developer has provided his code in the new extension format, the “Uninstall” button is missing from the extension description in the “Add-ons” section.
Even if the user downloaded the extension as a *.zip archive and installed it from the “Add-ons” tab by clicking the arrow and selecting “Install from Disk…”, the uninstall button still does not appear.
All extensions must be removed from the “Get Extensions” tab.
To remove the selected extension:
- Open the “Preferences” area
- Go to the “Get Extensions” tab
- Find the extension and expand its description
- To remove an extension, click the button with the vertical arrow in the upper-right corner of the extension description and select “Uninstall” from the drop-down menu
To programmatically remove an extension using the Blender Python API, run the following command:
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bpy.ops.extensions.package_uninstall(repo_index=_REPO_ID_, pkg_id='_EXTENSION_ID_') |
Pass two parameters to the calling operator:
_REPO_ID_ – the id of the repository from which the extension was installed. If the extension was installed from the official Blender repository, specify 0. If the extension was installed manually from a file on disk, specify 1.
_EXTENSION_ID_ – the id of the extension to be removed.