OldChromeRemover – Remove Obsolete Google Chrome Versions
OldChromeRemover is a simple console program that checks for any redundant versions of Google Chrome left behind by the updater. It will quickly remove all except the newest version when prompted by the user, allowing you to free up valuable disk space. OldChromeRemover also supports Chrome ‘Canary’ builds. This tool is for Windows users only, however a similar app (by somebody else) for Mac OSX users can be found here.
Microsoft .NET 3.5 must be installed to use. System Ninja contains the functionality of this program build into the scanner, and is recommended over OldChromeRemover. Windows Vista/Windows 7 users must use “Run As Administrator.”
Download [Version 0.5]
Now over 40,000 downloads!
Do not use if you have multiple Chrome channels installed simultaneously!
Advanced usage
You can silently run OldChromeRemover using the “/AUTO” command line argument. This will silently perform the scan, remove any detected directories and files, then exit the program.
Changelog
Version 0.1: Initial release
Version 0.2: Added ‘\AUTO’ commandline switch support
Version 0.3: Added removal support for old_chrome.exe file and Chrome Canary builds.
Version 0.4: Improved detection on x64 Windows.
Version 0.4: Fixed ‘Version string length’ error for most users.
Any chance for switches? Please?
Comment by Lord Necron on November 12, 2011 at 10:41 am
Aside from “/AUTO” (to run without user prompt, then silently close) do you have any other suggestions?
Comment by Shane Gowland on November 12, 2011 at 10:42 am
@Shane Gowland
Nope, that would be perfection!
Comment by Lord Necron on November 12, 2011 at 10:42 am
I think I have it working. It would be great if you could give it a test run and report back. Download: http://www.byteflask.com/4e81e5914b752
Comment by Shane Gowland on November 12, 2011 at 10:43 am
False positive from NAV 2011′s “Insight Protection” listed this as “WS.Reputation.1″, which is BS. (I turned that crap off now.)
Error when run as normal user, worked perfectly as Admin. (Vista)
Thank you very much!
Comment by Lord Necron on November 12, 2011 at 10:43 am
Thanks for the update, it’s perfect for scripts with the /auto switch.
Cheers!
Comment by David Lynch on December 6, 2011 at 6:12 pm
Every time I run this script as Administrator (even without), I have the message : Version string portion was too short or too long.
Any ideas?
Comment by Benbong on January 11, 2012 at 1:12 am
What would cause it to report that chrome is not detected. Running version 16.0.912.75. It was installed via ninite, and I run ccleaner regularly.
Comment by Tyler on January 11, 2012 at 1:43 am
@Benbong: That’s interesting. It means that the version number had too few (or too many) dots in it, so OldChromeRemover couldn’t compare the folder versions correctly. I would be interested to see what version you are running..?
@Tyler: Does ninite install Chrome into the default directory? I’m not really sure what’s wrong in this instance.
Comment by Shane Gowland on January 11, 2012 at 2:29 am
C:\Program Files (x86)\Google\Chrome
Comment by Tyler on January 11, 2012 at 2:32 am
By default; Chrome is *supposed* to be installed in C:\Users\\AppData\Google\Chrome\Application. I don’t know why ninine would do this differently.
It wouldn’t be hard to update OldChromeRemover to check in this location too. Give me a few hours
Comment by Shane Gowland on January 11, 2012 at 2:36 am
does this work for 64bit? I run it and it says chrome not detected.
google chrome > About > version: 16.0.912.75 m
Directory: C:Program Files (x86)GoogleChromeApplication
Comment by Cody on January 11, 2012 at 3:20 am
@Cody: This is the same issue as above. It will be fixed shortly.
Comment by Shane Gowland on January 11, 2012 at 3:23 am
Thank you so much for the Old Chrome remover freeware. It worked a treat. It’s very kind of you to be so generous.
Comment by Rene on January 11, 2012 at 3:24 am
@Cody & @Tyler: Version 0.4 should correct this issue.
Comment by Shane Gowland on January 11, 2012 at 6:48 am
Not working when run as user
Comment by Mad_Serg on January 11, 2012 at 7:02 am
@Mad_Serg As per the instructions; “Windows Vista/Windows 7 users must use “Run As Administrator.“
Comment by Shane Gowland on January 11, 2012 at 7:05 am
Worked great on WIndows 7 Ultimate x64.
Comment by Stefan Isendahl on January 11, 2012 at 8:35 am
Hey Shane
Sounds like good software to free up space… Thanks; but
I used elevated cmd prompt and ‘grant admin full control’ …outdated versions were found prompting me to type ‘Y’ to remove
Access to the path ‘avcodec-53.dll’ is denied.
I use Windows 7 64 bit
I could take ownership of dll but… Thoughts?
Comment by zbob on January 11, 2012 at 5:21 pm
Update to my original comments; I also use chromePlus. Might that explain the error?
Thx
Comment by zbob on January 11, 2012 at 6:04 pm
When “Run As Administrator“ Windows 7 asks a password for Administrator and really removes old Chrome but only for Administrator, not for user!
Comment by Mad_Serg on January 11, 2012 at 7:12 pm
I tried this and it says “cannot be deleted. in use by any process’.. Chrome is closed and nothing is running like backup utilities of anything. Any clue? (I did run it as admin)
Comment by theMezz on January 11, 2012 at 7:47 pm
I tried it, but I get the same error as Benbong: Version string portion was too short or too long.
Any ideas?
Comment by Bill on January 11, 2012 at 9:05 pm
Since Chrome only leaves the version prior to the latest one and removes everything else, I fail to see why this is needed. Chrome is not a huge eater of space and having the previous version to fall back on if needed is a good thing in my opinion.
Comment by Dch48 on January 12, 2012 at 4:40 pm
@ Dch48. Your statement is grossly incorrect. A number of users found Chrome wasn’t removing ANY previous versions, causing space consumption in excess of 3 gigabytes. This is a troubleshooting tool, not an “everybody-should-download-this” toy.
Comment by Shane Gowland on January 13, 2012 at 8:41 am
“Version string portion was too short or too long”
This is happenig to me too.
I’m running the version 16.0.912.75 m of Chrome.
Thanks for your work!
Manuel
Comment by Manuel on January 13, 2012 at 1:16 pm
@Manuel – Any chance you could post the path to the most recent Chrome install folder? eg: “C:\Users\XXX\Google\Chrome\Application\123.456.789.10″
Comment by Shane Gowland on January 13, 2012 at 1:31 pm
I’m under WinXP and the location of the app is:
C:\Documents and Settings\User\Local Settings\Application Data\Google\Chrome\Application\chrome.exe
So, it’s not in a specific version folder, but the content of this path is:
16.0.912.63\
16.0.912.75\
Dictionaries\
chrome.exe
First Run
master_preferences
which contains the folder of previous versions, I suppose.
Comment by Manuel on January 13, 2012 at 1:51 pm
My previous comment was not “grossly incorrect”. On both my Win 7 64 bit machine and on my XP Pro SP3 one, Chrome automatically removes everything but the previous version. There are never more than two versions on either machine.
Comment by Dch48 on January 13, 2012 at 3:45 pm
Congratulations then; your software is working as it should. If that’s the case, why exactly are you here?
Comment by Shane Gowland on January 13, 2012 at 4:27 pm
Working perfectly and the recent changes are good additions!
as always, thanks, Shane!
Comment by David Lynch on January 13, 2012 at 8:53 pm
Hi Shane,
Looks like it could be a great piece of kit, just to let you know, I’m experiencing similar issues to other users with the Version Strin gPortion was too short or too long, using version: 16.0.912.75 m.
Comment by D Dot on January 15, 2012 at 1:47 pm
@D Dot + a dozen other people.
I’m still not completely sure what’s causing this bug to occur. I still can’t even reproduce it; so it might be a while before it gets sorted.
Comment by Shane Gowland on January 15, 2012 at 1:51 pm
Great App Shane, thanks for sharing this. I get a similar behavior as others with the version string error. Here are the details;
This is the results I get when I try and run the app.
C:\Users\xxxxxxx.xxxx\Downloads>OldChromeRemover-0.4.exe
C:\Users\xxxxxxx.xxxx\AppData\Local\Google\Chrome\Application\old_chrome.exe
Version string portion was too short or too long.
Installation path is this; C:\Users\xxxxxxx.xxxx\AppData\Local\Google\Chrome\Application\16.0.912.75
Comment by Blayne on January 16, 2012 at 4:54 pm
@Blayne Does your username have dot (‘.’) in it? That’s the only thing in the path I can think of that could cause the regular expression to fail.
Comment by Shane Gowland on January 16, 2012 at 4:59 pm
It does, and the length of the directory name is correctly represented by the x’s.
Comment by Blayne on January 16, 2012 at 5:01 pm
I’ve just uploaded a new version that fixes this problem for a subset of users. The issue is caused by non-alphanumeric characters existing in the directory path.
0.5 will resolve issues where a period (‘.’) is present in the path.
If you still experience the ‘version string error’ please post any unusual characters in your directory path and I’ll get it resolved. I’m not entirely sure whether Windows XP users are experiencing issues with the spaces in directory paths. Someone will need to confirm this for me, since I ditched XP years ago… like everybody else really should get around to doing.
Comment by Shane Gowland on January 16, 2012 at 6:08 pm
Is Iron a “version” of Chrome? I know it is based on Chromium, does that fall under your instructions to avoid the tool for multiple versions of Chrome?
Comment by drdavis62 on January 17, 2012 at 11:52 pm
Iron isn’t supported, however if you wanted to email me the standard install directories, I could get it quickly added as an extra tool.
Comment by Shane Gowland on January 18, 2012 at 2:16 am
Shane,
I think you did not realize somebody can run two Chrome’s on one system,
but I am running here (in Vista 32bit) Canary and Dev together.
Can you change your nice program to support both ?
Canary sits in c:\Users\DH\AppData\Local\Google\Chrome SxS\Application\
Dev runs in c:\Program Files\Google\Chrome\Application\
DH
Comment by Dik on January 24, 2012 at 10:52 am
I hate to spoil it but what if I’m running a portable version of Chrome?
Is there anyway I can tune the program a bit so it CAN look for files in my chosen directory when its detecting Chrome installation?
Comment by ice on February 2, 2012 at 12:04 pm
I suppose this could be done. I do have a question though; why do you use portable Google Chrome? The only place I can see it being useful is at work/school computer where you are disallowed from installing software.
Comment by Shane Gowland on February 2, 2012 at 12:27 pm
Thank you for this very useful app. We appreciate the work and thanks for making it free.
Comment by theMezz on February 25, 2012 at 3:49 am
I get the message ‘access to the path ‘avcodec-43.dll’ is denied’ that was mentioned earlier in the comments.
I can’t see whether this was resolved.
I don’t use ChromePlus unlike the other person with this problem.
Comment by elevendaysinmay on March 7, 2012 at 7:27 am
Where is this “avcodec-43.dll” file located? It sounds like a multimedia codec; are you using Nero/VLC/WMP/Zune or any other media-related software on your computer?
Comment by Shane Gowland on March 7, 2012 at 7:54 am
Sorry typo, it’s ‘avcodec-53.dll’.
It’s in C:\Users\temp\AppData\Local\Google\Chrome\Application\17.0.963.65
I do use VLC
Thanks
Comment by elevendaysinmay on March 7, 2012 at 8:14 am
I have a problem: When I start it without administrator privileges it founds older vesion of Chrome for deletion but doesn’t have the rights to delete it.
But when I grant the program administrator privileges, it doesn’t find anything.
It’s a bit confusing!
Feel free to send me an email if you know the solution to this problem!
Comment by Dino on March 7, 2012 at 6:04 pm
I’m really not sure what would be causing this. I can’t reproduce it; which means I can’t use ProcessExplorer to establish what’s locking the file, which means I’m not able to come up with a workaround.
Comment by Shane Gowland on March 8, 2012 at 11:50 am
Oh sorry. I just realized I was on Windows 8 Consumer Preview when this happened. On Windows 7 everything works great!
Comment by Dino on March 8, 2012 at 11:54 pm
Thanks for this great tool! Would it be possible to show how much space was freed by removing the old chrome versions? Thanks!
Comment by OldChromeRemover on March 11, 2012 at 5:18 pm
Not in OldChromeRemover. System Ninja (which contains the same functionality as OldChromeRemover) will tell you the total size of the removed data.
Comment by Shane Gowland on March 12, 2012 at 3:11 pm
This program and system ninja are so effective…after running the program and deleteing over 1.5Gb of junk and dump files,i have a faster response from my pc,thank you alot!
Comment by Igor on April 6, 2012 at 7:17 pm
Works like a charm, thanks Shane!
A GUI would be nice of course, but this works fine too.
Comment by Merijn on April 9, 2012 at 10:34 am