Canonical, the company behind Ubuntu, heavily pushes “Snap” packages as the default method for installing software. While Snaps are convenient, they are notoriously slow to open, they clutter your system mounts with dozens of virtual loop devices, and they consume significantly more disk space than traditional APT packages. If you prefer a lean, fast system built entirely on standard .deb packages, you can completely purge the snapd daemon from your OS.
Step 1: Remove Installed Snap Packages
Before you can delete the core service, you must uninstall any software currently relying on it. Open your terminal and list your installed snaps:
snap list
Remove them one by one using the sudo snap remove [package_name] command. (Note: You must remove the core packages like core18 and snapd last).
Step 2: Purge the snapd Daemon
Once the snap list is completely empty, you can uninstall the underlying service itself.
- Run the following command to completely remove the package and its configuration files:
sudo apt autoremove --purge snapd - Next, clear out the leftover cache directories to reclaim your disk space:
sudo rm -rf /var/cache/snapd/
rm -rf ~/snap
Step 3: Block snapd from Reinstalling
If you run sudo apt install chromium-browser in the future, Ubuntu will secretly reinstall snapd as a dependency behind your back. To prevent this, you must block the package entirely.
- Run the following command to hold the package:
sudo apt-mark hold snapd
Your Ubuntu system is now completely Snap-free, meaning all future software will be installed via traditional APT repositories or Flatpaks.