Can't find any way to remove a custom Excel Add-in from the "Excel Add-ins" button on the Developer ribbon

Question

More detail shorty, but briefly my question is similar to that listed in this post (hyperlinked). I've tried everything listed in that post to no avail, including following the referenced articles for completely removing Excel Add-ins repairing office, and running Excel as an Administrator. I have not yet made the registry deletions for installed Add-ins and will try that if nothing else is suggested.

Problem: I cannot find a way to remove (I don't mean "disable by unchecking") a custom Excel Add-in that I developed, installed, and tested.

I've been developing and testing an Excel Add-in (developed in Office 365 Excel VBA, saved as .xlam file, and added to Office 365 via the developer ribbon->Excel Add-ins button->Browse button. The attached screenshot shows the add-in is available to my excel files even though it is currently unchecked (disabled).

Note: the screenshot also shows that there is no "Delete" button shown. any of the add-ins shown in the dialog.

Also note that I also created a custom macro-enabled template (.xltm) and enabled the custom add-in I created in it. I also added the .xlam modules as a reference in the visual basic code for the .xltm (so that I could call the modules in the add-in from .xltm VBA code. I stored the .xltm template is the standard location for custom office templates (C:\Users\YOUR-NAME\Documents\Custom Office Templates). In trying to solve my problem, I have since deleted all custom xltm files from my system!

The second screenshot doesn't show my add-in anywhere as would be suggested by this article: View, manage, and install add-ins in Office programs.

Short of the registry edits suggested in the referenced post to delete all installed Add-ins, I am stumped for options to solve the stated problem. Any thoughts?

Update: I tried the registry edits suggested in the referenced post. Those specific keys didn't have any data in them. But I did find 6 other keys that contained references to my custom add-ins. I deleted just the values in two of the keys (not the keys themselves) and that solved my issue:

[HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Office\16.0\Excel\Add-in Manager]

[HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Office\16.0\Excel\AddInLoadTimes]

I will update the other post with this info for additional key values to delete.

Unfortunately, this doesn't explain why the interface to Delete an add-in is not visible in the first screen shot, or why the addin was showing up at all in the second screen shot. But I guess those are topics for another post!

If you took the time to read this much detail, thank you!

Answer 1

There is (and there was never) a button to delete AddIns in that dialog nor in Excel at all.

Close Excel

Delete the xlam file (or rename/move to an other location)

Open Excel

Open the Excel AddIn dialog again

Select the AddIn

You'll get a message that Excel can't find the AddIn and asks you if it should be removed, click Yes.

Andreas.

Answer 2

There is (and there was never) a button to delete AddIns in that dialog nor in Excel at all.

Thanks for this info. Good to know going forward! I guess I was misinformed by info in one of the many google results I reviewed!

Answer 3

Close Excel

Delete the xlam file (or rename/move to an other location)

Open Excel

Open the Excel AddIn dialog again

Select the AddIn

You'll get a message that Excel can't find the AddIn and asks you if it should be removed, click Yes.

I was able to test the above process and it worked for me! Thank you very much...significantly cleaner and safer than deleting registry entries!