Vortex doesn’t remove your downloaded mods after uninstallation

[Mezzato]

Recently, I was investigating why 55 gigabytes of my PC were completely missing from any folders. I ended up tracking this bloated size down to the Users folder, where I entered the one that is NOT “public”, and scanned the folder itself before opening it. The folder was taking up, specifically, 55 gigabytes. I open the folder, highlight all folders in it and it says that it is 687mb. I entered view, and I chose to show hidden folders. After more investigation I had tracked 22 of the 55 gigabytes into a folder called “Vortex”. I had uninstalled Vortex two weeks ago. I opened up the folder and every single mod I’d ever downloaded was in this folder. I’m unsure if this has already been covered before, but if you are having issues with invisible files causing an absurd amount of wasted space on your computer; i hope this helped.

[showler]

Why would you think it would?

 

Removing Vortex doesn't mean you want your mods gone. You could be trying out MO2 or going to manual installs.

 

Do you think removing MS Word should delete all your documents?

[Guest deleted34304850]

im curious here.

when you say it doesn't remove the downloaded mods - are you talking about the archive files you've downloaded from wherever, or, are you talking about the contents of those folders?

if its the former - the archives - then you can safely move them off to another drive as they're just archives.

if it's the latter - the actual files that make up the mod - in order for vortex to "delete" them - you first 'purge' your mods and this simply removes the hardlinks to the files, or deletes anything that vortex installed.

 

simply removing vortex won't affect whatever you've got on your systems - you're removing vortex - there's no cascading delete of everything it knows about as part of removing it - in fact, i don't know of any product that would do that effectively.

[Mezzato]

What I’m trying to say is that removing Vortex will make your mods stop working; to be sure. But as I said before, by investigating hidden files (refer to the steps i listed in my first post in this topic) after removing the games that are affected by vortex, getting rid of the original BSA files and all that, the part of the mod that takes up storage remains.

 

For what 1ae0bfb8 said, every single mod that was taking up storage on my computer was organized into a file with the Vortex name on it, it was directly associated with Vortex. Why would the uninstallation application not remove that file with it? Mind you this was after I’d uninstalled Vortex.

[showler]

The "hidden files" you are referring to can be configured to be anywhere you want on your computer. That location is just a default location.

 

And there is no application that I am aware of that removes user files as part of the removal process.

 

As I said, what you are suggesting is like removing MS Word and having it delete every DOC file on your computer, or removing an image viewer and having it remove all your image files off your computer.

 

Those archives are something that can be managed by Vortex, but they are NOT part of Vortex.

[HadToRegister]

What I’m trying to say is that removing Vortex will make your mods stop working; to be sure. But as I said before, by investigating hidden files (refer to the steps i listed in my first post in this topic) after removing the games that are affected by vortex, getting rid of the original BSA files and all that, the part of the mod that takes up storage remains.

 

For what 1ae0bfb8 said, every single mod that was taking up storage on my computer was organized into a file with the Vortex name on it, it was directly associated with Vortex. Why would the uninstallation application not remove that file with it? Mind you this was after I’d uninstalled Vortex.

 

 

Are you thinking that if you uninstall Vortex, that the Uninstallation process will also uninstall all the mods you installed with it too?

If so, that's not how it works, or ANY mod manager works for that matter.

 

If you're planning on uninstalling Vortex, you MUST go through each Game Profile you have set up, for each of the games you have vortex managing, and have Vortex UNINSTALL the MOds (Easily done by click the mod in the top of the list, and hitting CTRL + A so it selects the entire Mod List, and click REMOVE in the small white menu that appears.)

 

Once you've uninstalled all the mods for each game you manage with Vortex, then you can uninstall Vortex. However, all of the 7z, rar and ZIP files you downloaded with Vortex will still be available to use, because that's how Windows Programs work.

You can then delete those Mods if you wish, at your leisure, -or- keep them around to use in a different mod manager.

Imagine how many people would come here and be extremely pissed off that they uninstalled Vortex, and unbeknownst to them, it also deleted 2.7 GIGS worth of Mods they downloaded, ESPECIALLY the People who have Timed Internet.