# How to remove the Discourse chat plugin completely from an install

**URL:** https://meta.discourse.org/t/how-to-remove-the-discourse-chat-plugin-completely-from-an-install/250848
**Category:** Self-hosting
**Created:** [January 5, 2023, 5:12pm UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/how-to-remove-the-discourse-chat-plugin-completely-from-an-install/250848 "2023-01-05T17:12:52Z")
**Posts on this page:** 6
**Page:** 1

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### Author: ![Victor\_Berridge](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/meta/user_avatar/meta.discourse.org/victor_berridge/32/211618_2.png) [@Victor\_Berridge](https://meta.discourse.org/u/Victor_Berridge)
#### Post date: [January 5, 2023, 5:12pm UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/how-to-remove-the-discourse-chat-plugin-completely-from-an-install/250848/1 "2023-01-05T17:12:52Z")

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The code is disabled in the admin settings but would prefer to not waste any bits loading this plugin which we don’t plan to use.

Could not find any Discourse config parameter to disable this plugin from being loaded when the container is built (now we can only disable, but the plugin code is loaded).  
Ideally, for us, would be to have a config variable in the container build `YML` file which instructs the build to omit this plugin code (searched and did not find one).

Thanks

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### Author: ![crcoli7307](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/meta/user_avatar/meta.discourse.org/crcoli7307/32/267901_2.png) [@crcoli7307](https://meta.discourse.org/u/crcoli7307)
#### Post date: [January 5, 2023, 5:25pm UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/how-to-remove-the-discourse-chat-plugin-completely-from-an-install/250848/2 "2023-01-05T17:25:35Z")

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I don’t believe there is a way to disable the setting in any other way than with the check box in the admin panel.

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### Author: ![crcoli7307](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/meta/user_avatar/meta.discourse.org/crcoli7307/32/267901_2.png) [@crcoli7307](https://meta.discourse.org/u/crcoli7307)
#### Post date: [January 5, 2023, 5:30pm UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/how-to-remove-the-discourse-chat-plugin-completely-from-an-install/250848/3 "2023-01-05T17:30:18Z")

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You could always use an old, unsupported version of discourse which doesn’t have the chat functionality built in, although I don’t think the security risks would be worth removing the chat function.

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### Author: ![Falco](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/meta/user_avatar/meta.discourse.org/falco/32/179432_2.png) [@Falco](https://meta.discourse.org/u/Falco)
#### Post date: [January 5, 2023, 5:43pm UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/how-to-remove-the-discourse-chat-plugin-completely-from-an-install/250848/4 "2023-01-05T17:43:26Z")

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> [@Victor\_Berridge](#):
>
> prefer to not waste any bits loading this plugin

What bits?

After disabling the plugin on the admin UI we stop loading the plugin JS, so no bits are wasted on the transfer.

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### Author: ![pfaffman](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/meta/user_avatar/meta.discourse.org/pfaffman/32/120154_2.png) [@pfaffman](https://meta.discourse.org/u/pfaffman)
#### Post date: [January 5, 2023, 10:12pm UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/how-to-remove-the-discourse-chat-plugin-completely-from-an-install/250848/5 "2023-01-05T22:12:30Z")

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It’s possible to put an `rm -rf chat` in your `app.yml`, but I don’t recommend it for all of the reasons mentioned already, so if you want to do that you’ll need to look at some other examples of how to run commands in your `app.yml`.

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### Author: ![system](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/meta/user_avatar/meta.discourse.org/system/32/443519_2.png) [@system](https://meta.discourse.org/u/system)
#### Post date: [February 4, 2023, 10:12pm UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/how-to-remove-the-discourse-chat-plugin-completely-from-an-install/250848/6 "2023-02-04T22:12:59Z")

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