If you’ve ever stared at your overflowing storage drive, or spent 20 minutes troubleshooting a Riot Client update that just won’t load, you’ve probably wondered how to uninstall League of Legends at least once. It’s not a permanent choice, of course — millions of players step away for months at a time before coming back for a new champion release or ranked season reset. But if you’re ready to clear up space, fix persistent client bugs, or just take a break from ranked queue toxicity, removing the game properly saves you a lot of headaches down the line. Rushing through the default Windows or Mac uninstall process often leaves behind gigabytes of leftover patch files, cached data, and broken registry entries that can mess with future game installs or slow down your device.
What Happens If You Use the Default Uninstall Process for LoL?
Most people just right click the League of Legends icon on their desktop and hit delete, or use the default Windows Add/Remove Programs tool to get rid of the game. That works for small apps, but LoL is a huge program, usually sitting at 20 to 30 GB of total storage when you include patch history and cached assets. The default uninstall process only removes the core game files, leaving behind a ton of extra data you don’t need.
Leftover Riot Client files can cause errors if you try to reinstall the game later, because the client will try to read old, broken patch data instead of downloading fresh files. You’ll also waste 5 to 10 GB of storage on cached skins, champion ability previews, and old replay files that don’t get removed with the base uninstall. In worse cases, leftover registry entries on Windows can interfere with other game launchers you use, or cause false positive flags from your antivirus software when you download other Riot Games titles like Valorant.
How to Uninstall League of Legends on Windows and Mac, Step by Step
Before you start the uninstall process, make sure you close the Riot Client completely, including any background processes that might be running. You can check this in Task Manager on Windows or Activity Monitor on Mac, and end any tasks labeled Riot Client, League of Legends, or Riot Vanguard. Once that’s done, follow these steps for your device:
- For Windows users: Open Settings > Apps > Installed Apps, search for League of Legends, click the three dots on the right, and select Uninstall. Follow the on-screen prompts, and make sure you check the box that says “Remove all Riot Client temporary files” if it appears.
- For Mac users: Open your Applications folder, find the League of Legends app, drag it to the Trash, then right click the Trash icon and select Empty Trash. You can also use the built-in uninstaller inside the League of Legends folder if you have it saved in a custom location.
- For users who installed LoL through the Epic Games Store: Open your Epic Games Library, find League of Legends, click the three dots next to the title, select Uninstall, and confirm the action when prompted.
These steps remove the core game files, but we’re not done yet. You still need to clear leftover files that the official uninstall process skips to fully free up space and avoid future errors. If you’re only uninstalling to fix a minor client bug, you can stop here and reinstall the game right away, but we recommend finishing the full cleanup process for best results.
How to Remove All Leftover LoL Files After Uninstall
Now that the base game is gone, you’ll want to track down and delete the extra files that are taking up space on your drive. On Windows, most of these files are stored in hidden folders, so you’ll need to turn on hidden file visibility first. You can do this by opening File Explorer, clicking the View tab, and checking the box that says Hidden items. Next, navigate to the Riot Games folder in your C: drive, usually located at C:\Riot Games, and delete the entire League of Legends subfolder if it’s still there.
Don’t delete the whole Riot Games folder if you still play other Riot titles like Valorant or Teamfight Tactics — only delete the League of Legends specific folders. You should also clear your cache by typing %appdata% into the File Explorer address bar, finding the Riot and League of Legends folders, and deleting those as well. For Mac users, open Finder, click Go > Go to Folder, type ~/Library/Application Support, find the Riot Games and League of Legends folders, and move them to the Trash. Don’t forget to empty the Trash once you’re done to fully free up the space.
If you’re not sure which files are safe to delete, you can use a free third-party cleanup tool to scan for leftover game files, as long as you download it from a trusted source. Double check that you don’t have any unsaved replay files or custom skin mods saved in these folders before you delete them, because you won’t be able to recover them once they’re gone. Once you finish this step, you’ll have removed every trace of LoL from your device, freeing up 20 to 30 GB of space for other games, files, or programs.
What to Do If You Want to Reinstall League of Legends Later
Uninstalling LoL doesn’t mean you lose all your account progress, so don’t worry about losing your rank, skin collection, or champion unlocks if you decide to come back. All of that data is stored on Riot’s servers, tied to your account email, so you just need to log back in when you reinstall to access everything. If you uninstalled to fix client bugs, we recommend waiting at least 24 hours before reinstalling, to make sure any temporary server-side issues have time to resolve.
When you do reinstall, download the latest Riot Client directly from the official Riot Games website instead of using old installer files you have saved on your device, to avoid compatibility issues. Take a minute to install the game on an SSD if you have one available, because that cuts load times in half and reduces the chance of in-game stuttering or client crashes. If you’re coming back after a long break, spend a few minutes checking the latest patch notes to learn about new champions, item reworks, or ranked rule changes before you jump back into queue.
A lot can change in a few months, and you don’t want to be caught off guard by a new jungle path or mid lane meta shift when you play your first game back. You don’t have to grind ranked right away either — casual normals or ARAM games are a great way to get back into the swing of things without the pressure of climbing.
At the end of the day, learning how to uninstall League of Legends properly is a simple skill that every player should know, whether you’re taking a short break, fixing a bug, or making room for a new game release. You don’t need any fancy technical skills to do it, and taking the extra 10 minutes to clear leftover files saves you a lot of frustration down the line. If you do come back to the game later, you’ll have a fresh install that runs smoother and has fewer bugs than if you’d just patched over old files. And if you’re stepping away for good? You’ll get back a ton of storage space and one less source of ranked queue stress in your daily life.