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ttyrex

Member

From: Montreal, Canada

Registered: 2026-02-05

Posts: 2

Methods for identifying packages I no longer use

Hi everyone,
I’m curious about the methods people use to identify packages they no longer use—and actually uninstall them.
I’m thinking beyond orphans or cached packages. I’m more interested in tracking actual usage (totally unused, sometimes removing configs, other times keeping them, etc.). My setup is a mix of command-line (history is ok) and graphical daily usage.
How do you handle this kind of cleanup in practice? Do you do a strict review while updating, or use other approaches?
Thanks!

mpan

Member

Registered: 2012-08-01

Posts: 1,571

Website

Re: Methods for identifying packages I no longer use

Hello,

Outputs three randomly selected, explicitly installed package with their descriptions:

pacman -Qeq | shuf -n 3 | expac '%n:\n   %d' -

You may ask yourself, if you recognize them and whether they’re useful to you.

The expac command comes from package expac.

A similar one-liner, but only lists packages with executables in “/usr/bin”. A bit more expensive, but more likely to hit what one really thinks of when asking about applications:

pacman -Qel | grep -E '^[^\s]+\s/usr/bin/' | cut -f 1 -d ' ' | sort -u | shuf -n 3 | expac '%n:\n   %d' -

Last edited by mpan (2026-02-05 18:56:05)

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seth

Member

From: Don't DM me only for attention

Registered: 2012-09-03

Posts: 73,494

Re: Methods for identifying packages I no longer use

I just scan the package list on Syu - if I see something and ask myself "wft is that installed" I look into that and whether it can be removed.
The mean trap here is packages that drop out of the repos, so you'll also have to look at -Qm once in a while.
And oc check -Qdt ("Coup d'état") - careful, this might include packages you had as deps, are now no longer but you'd still want to keep.

Unfortunately checking timestamps of pacman controlled files won't work (as they update with package updates)

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graysky

Wiki Maintainer

From: :wq

Registered: 2008-12-01

Posts: 10,726

Website

Re: Methods for identifying packages I no longer use

I like:

expac -H M '%m\t%n' | sort -h -r | less

Last edited by graysky (2026-02-05 23:21:42)

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