How to uninstall Joomla

We recently migrated a site from Joomla to WordPress and had to figure out how best to completely uninstall Joomla. Well, turns out the best way is to just delete all its files and then remove the database. Below are the folders and files you will need to remove (this is based off of Joomla 1.5.x):

Joomla! Folders

  • administrator – This folder contains all the files used for the administrator back-end.
  • cache – This folder is used by Joomla and some extensions to store cached files.
  • components – This folder contains all the installed components.
  • images – This folder is used by Joomla and store conten’s image files.
  • includes – This folder contains the Joomla framework files.
  • installation – This folder is needed for the initial Joomla installation and must be removed once the installation is complete.
  • language – This folder is used by Joomla and some extensions to store language translation files. Each language has a folder in languages containing all the different language files installed with extensions and templates. The file name of the each translation file is similar to the extension or template to which it belongs. If you look at an individual language file, they are text files that contain a list of constants used in the extension or template and the value that should be shown to the user.
  • libraries – This folder contains the Joomla API code along with other packages.
  • logs – This folder is used by Joomla and extensions to store log files.
  • media – This folder is used by Joomla and some extensions to store image files.
  • modules – This folder contains all the installed modules.
  • plugins – This folder contains all the installed plugins.
  • templates – This folder contains all the installed templates.
  • tmp – This folder is used by Joomla and extensions to store temporary files.
  • xmlrpc – This folder contains files that are used when making xmlrpc calls to Joomla. These calls are only allowed if Enable Web Services is set to Yes in the Globals -> System configuration (It is No by default).

Joomla! Files

  • CHANGELOG.php

    • configuration.php-dist – This is an example configuration.php file. This file will be created for you during the installation process, but this is good to keep around for reference.

  • COPYRIGHT.php
  • CREDITS.php
  • htaccess.txt – This is an example htaccess file. Apache will not use this file until it is renamed to “.htaccess”.
  • index2.php – This is a secondary entry point for all Joomla requests. If you replace index.php with index2.php in a request to a Joomla server, only the response from the requested component will be visible.
  • index.php – This is the main entry point for all Joomla requests.
  • INSTALL.php
  • LICENSE.php
  • LICENSES.php
  • robots.txt – This file is used by search engines. It tells search engines which folders not to index. In Joomla’s case, search engines should not index any folders.