Check if Go is installed

Let’s start with checking if Go actually installed on machine.

To see version of Go run this command:

go version

To see Go location run this one:

which go

Default value is /usr/local/bin/go.

Go installation options

There are multiple ways to setup Go dev environment. Developer can pick an option that provides more flexibility or more simplicity. Flexibility is presented by packaged Go binaries .darwin-amd64.tar.gz archive when simplicity is achieved with package management tools like Homebrew. An option in between is .darwin-amd64.pkg macOS package installer

What is important to understand is that you can have several versions of Go installed on machine using several different methods. In that case, there is no single solution to uninstall all these versions and multiple places need to be checked.

If Go installed using Homebrew

Homebrew is a smart package manager that is capable of cleaning up after itself.

It is recommended to use built-in uninstall command if Go was installed using brew.

Command below uninstalls Dep and Go if it was installed using brew:

brew uninstall dep
brew uninstall go

Homebrew cleans up $PATH and other config files. No extra steps are necessary if Go was never installed using different options.

tip: brew keeps Go files in /usr/local/Cellar/go/x.x.x/ folder

If Go installed using macOS package

Run the command line to see if Go was installed using macOS package

pkgutil --pkgs

Go macOS package is presented as com.googlecode.go in result list. macOS package stores files in the predefined location. For Go version 1.12 these are the files to be deleted:

  • file /etc/paths.d/go
  • folder usr/local/go

There is a command line to check if files are moved to different location in future Go versions:

pkgutil --only-files --files com.googlecode.go

Next step is to remove the system record of Go package:

sudo pkgutil --forget com.googlecode.go

Cleaning up $PATH environment variable to be performed manually as described below.

Removing files manually

  • /etc/paths.d/go check if that file exists and remove. It is added by macOS package.
  • /usr/local/go check if that folder exists and remove. macOS package keeps Go files in that folder.
  • Check $PATH for */go/bin. That is a good hint find where Go is installed. Delete that go folder.
  • $HOME/go or $GOPATH - Go Workspace. Important! This folder may contain not pushed code in /src sub-folder. Be careful to not lost your work.

Environment Variables

  • $PATH contains path to Go binaries (/usr/local/go/bin by default). Update $PATH to exclude path to Go binaries.
  • $GOPATH may contain override for workspace path default value $HOME/go. Remove $GOPATH if it exists.

Happy uninstalling!