How to: Delete or Remove a Project
You can delete projects permanently, remove them from a solution but keep the project, or unload a project from a solution temporarily. The procedure for taking projects out of solutions or deleting them permanently is simple. However, the project type determines the outcome for your project and the items that comprise it. Removing, deleting, and excluding each describe a different degree of disassociation from the solution.
If you want to |
Then use |
Example |
|---|---|---|
Disassociate a project from a solution, but not remove its physical file |
Remove |
A project that you might want to include in another solution, but isn't useful in the current solution |
Permanently erase files from physical storage as well as the project in the solution |
Delete |
A project you no longer need |
Temporarily disassociate a project from a solution build |
Unload |
A project you want to keep in the solution but do not want to include in a build |
As with other commands, the actual outcome depends on the project template you used to create the project. You can look in Help for more information about the specific project template you have selected.
Removing
You can remove projects from your solution without erasing the project files from storage.
To remove a project
In Solution Explorer, select the project you want to remove.
On the Edit menu, select Remove.
You can add the project to the solution again or add it to other solutions because it still exists in storage.
Deleting
You can delete a project permanently, but not by using Visual Studio. You need to remove any references to the project you want to delete from solutions you have in Visual Studio, and then use Windows Explorer to delete the associated files from storage permanently.
To permanently delete a project
In Solution Explorer, select the project you want to delete from the solution.
Web projects should simply be closed and deleted outside of Visual Studio using Windows Explorer.
On the Edit menu, select Remove.
In Windows Explorer, locate and select the files associated with the project you want to delete.
On the File menu, select Delete.
Unloading
At times you might want to remove the project from the solution temporarily.
To temporarily unload a project from a solution
In Solution Explorer, select the project you want to unload.
On the Projectmenu, select Unload Project.
Note
You can reload the project at any time by using the Reload command on the Project menu.
See Also
Tasks
How to: Unload and Reload Projects