IMPORTANT WARNING: BE CERTAIN TO FIRST DECRYPT ALL OF YOUR FILES BEFORE DELETING ATAKAMA APPLICATION DATA. IF YOU FAIL TO DECRYPT YOUR FILES BEFORE DELETING THE APPLICATION DATA, YOU WILL BE UNABLE TO ACCESS YOUR FILES.
This article applies to: Windows 10 and Windows 11
Completely removing Atakama involves uninstalling the application and then deleting Atakama's application data files and folders.
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Removal Process Overview
Removing Atakama requires performing the following four steps:
- Move all files out of your Atakama Vault
- This applies to files in the Atakama Vault (files in the Vault folder inside Atakama) only. It does not apply to files located in other folders on your machine, files on a network file server or stored in the cloud.
- Clearing the application data will also delete all files in the Atakama Vault, so you will want to move them elsewhere before performing Step 4.
- The simplest way to do this is to copy all the files and folders in the Atakama Vault and paste them into a folder outside Atakama.
- Atakama will require approval on the smartphone linked to your profile, so if you have a large number of encrypted files it is recommended that you start a session to facilitate this process.
- Decrypt all filesoutside the Atakama Vault
- Files not in the Atakama Vault will not be deleted when you clear the application data. Therefore, those files can be decrypted in-place.
- Uninstall the application (see steps below).
- Clear the application data (see steps below).
Uninstall Atakama
Note: Uninstalling Atakama will not prevent you from decrypting files, provided that you do not clear the Atakama application data (next section). You can reinstall Atakama and resume using the application without loss of access.
- To remove the Atakama application, open Control Panel and select Uninstall a Program. If you're having trouble finding "Uninstall a Program," use the search bar in the upper-right corner of Control Panel.
- Find and select Atakama in the list of programs that appear, then click Uninstall at the top of the list and follow the prompts in the uninstaller.
- Restart your computer to stop any Atakama processes currently in system memory. This will allow you to delete the files in the next steps.
Clear the Application Data
- Verify that you have decrypted all files. Performing the following steps will prevent you from decrypting any remaining encrypted files.
- Quit Atakama if it is running.
- To remove the internal Atakama application data open This PC, then type in %localappdata% in the location bar and hit enter. This will take you to the AppData\Local folder in your home directory.
- Click on "View" at the top, check the box "Hidden Items" in the Show/Hide section.
- Find the AppKeys folder, the Atakama folder and the AtakamaW and move them to the Recycle Bin.
- When performing this step, you may find that you cannot delete the Atakama folder because a file is open by another program. Instead of deleting the whole folder, simply navigate inside the Atakama folder, delete all files within it, and ignore any files open by another application.
- When performing this step, you may find that you cannot delete the Atakama folder because a file is open by another program. Instead of deleting the whole folder, simply navigate inside the Atakama folder, delete all files within it, and ignore any files open by another application.
- Next, you will need to remove the Atakama data that manages the Personal Files Secure Folder. To get there, type %homepath% in the location bar and hit enter. This will take you to your account's home folder.
- Find the folder .atakamashare.db and the file .atakama_dir.kama move them to the Recycle Bin.
- Optional: Remove your user preferences config file in the same folder named atakama.config. If this config file contains the path used to find your organization's enterprise configuration file, then you should leave this file as is.
Advanced Instructions
Atakama utilizes the data in the following locations:
| Path | Type | Additional Information |
%LOCALAPPDATA%\Atakama | Folder | Folder itself does not need to be deleted All contents should be deleted, however there may be a log file (shellext.log or similar) which is busy can cannot be deleted. This is expected behavior and that log file in particular may be ignored. |
| LOCALAPPDATA%\AtakamaW | Folder | Temporary files for GUI. Can be deleted. |
%LOCALAPPDATA%\AppKeys | Folder | Deletion is required to reset client back to initial setup. However, deletion is inadvisable unless explicitly recommended by the Atakama support team. |
%USERPROFILE%\.atakamashare.db | Folder | Used by Atakama Admins to perform encryption in their respective home directories. Deletion required if performing initial setup again as an admin, however deletion will remove the ability to decrypt any files in the home directory. |
| %USERPROFILE%\.atakama_dir.kama | File | See above |
| %USERPROFILE%\atakama.config | File | In most cases, deletion of this file is unnecessary. If this file was pre-configured by your organization, it is advisable to leave it as-is. |
Deleting all of the files and folders listed above will effectively reset Atakama to the state it is in immediately after installation.
You can delete all of these files and folders with the following commands in Command Prompt. Please be sure you know how to use these commands before entering them and that you have first decrypted all of your files.
del %LOCALAPPDATA%\Atakama del %LOCALAPPDATA%\AppKeys del %USERPROFILE%\.atakamashare.db del %USERPROFILE%\.atakama_dir.kama del %USERPROFILE%\atakama.config