# How to check for packages updates without actually installing them

**URL:** <https://discourse.julialang.org/t/how-to-check-for-packages-updates-without-actually-installing-them/32498>\
**Category:** General Usage\
**Tags:** question\
**Created:** [December 20, 2019, 3:20am UTC](https://discourse.julialang.org/t/how-to-check-for-packages-updates-without-actually-installing-them/32498 "2019-12-20T03:20:51Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 5\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![Jacky](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/ce73a5/32.png) [@Jacky](https://discourse.julialang.org/u/Jacky)\
**Post date:** [December 20, 2019, 3:20am UTC](https://discourse.julialang.org/t/how-to-check-for-packages-updates-without-actually-installing-them/32498/1 "2019-12-20T03:20:51Z")

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Hi, currently I am using the Pkg.update() to check for available packages updates. However, Pkg.update() also automatically install the missing updates. Is there a way to check for package updates without installing them?

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**Author:** ![carstenbauer](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/julialang/user_avatar/discourse.julialang.org/carstenbauer/32/4981_2.png) [@carstenbauer](https://discourse.julialang.org/u/carstenbauer)\
**Post date:** [December 20, 2019, 4:22am UTC](https://discourse.julialang.org/t/how-to-check-for-packages-updates-without-actually-installing-them/32498/2 "2019-12-20T04:22:31Z")

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`] preview up` (untested, but should work)

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**Author:** ![turtle](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/ecb155/32.png) [@turtle](https://discourse.julialang.org/u/turtle)\
**Post date:** [June 14, 2020, 2:35pm UTC](https://discourse.julialang.org/t/how-to-check-for-packages-updates-without-actually-installing-them/32498/3 "2020-06-14T14:35:19Z")

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Thank you for sharing, this feature could be very useful.

Unfortunately, while it works using `Julia 1.3.1` or `1.0.5`,  
it gives the following error with the current version `1.4.2`:  
`ERROR: Could not determine command`  
(My OS is 64-bit Windows 7.)

Please, could anyone confirm this behaviour?  
.

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**Author:** ![jishnub](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/julialang/user_avatar/discourse.julialang.org/jishnub/32/33620_2.png) [@jishnub](https://discourse.julialang.org/u/jishnub)\
**Post date:** [June 14, 2020, 4:09pm UTC](https://discourse.julialang.org/t/how-to-check-for-packages-updates-without-actually-installing-them/32498/4 "2020-06-14T16:09:49Z")

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[Preview is deleted.](https://github.com/JuliaLang/Pkg.jl/pull/1367). The suggestion seems to be to `update` and use `undo` to get back to the previous state.

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**Author:** ![turtle](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/ecb155/32.png) [@turtle](https://discourse.julialang.org/u/turtle)\
**Post date:** [June 14, 2020, 6:24pm UTC](https://discourse.julialang.org/t/how-to-check-for-packages-updates-without-actually-installing-them/32498/5 "2020-06-14T18:24:54Z")

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Thank you very much for the useful info.