# How to garbage collect pacakges regardless or last used date?

**URL:** <https://discourse.julialang.org/t/how-to-garbage-collect-pacakges-regardless-or-last-used-date/32865>\
**Category:** General Usage\
**Created:** [January 2, 2020, 5:47am UTC](https://discourse.julialang.org/t/how-to-garbage-collect-pacakges-regardless-or-last-used-date/32865 "2020-01-02T05:47:04Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 7\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![xiaodai](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/julialang/user_avatar/discourse.julialang.org/xiaodai/32/15937_2.png) [@xiaodai](https://discourse.julialang.org/u/xiaodai)\
**Post date:** [January 2, 2020, 5:47am UTC](https://discourse.julialang.org/t/how-to-garbage-collect-pacakges-regardless-or-last-used-date/32865/1 "2020-01-02T05:47:04Z")

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I recall reading somewhere that `]gc` is conservative and only remove packages that haven’t been used in the last 1 month.

My question how do I do it more aggressively so that I can remove a package that is no longer required regardless of when it was last used?

The use-case is in build docker images. I have built a docker image by using PackageCompilerX.jl to compile some packages but now I don’t require PackageCompilerX any more so I

```julia
]rm PackageCompilerX
]gc

```

but then `]gc` doesn’t seem to do much. Hopefully, this makes it much more googlable.

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**Author:** ![dilumaluthge](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/julialang/user_avatar/discourse.julialang.org/dilumaluthge/32/29283_2.png) [@dilumaluthge](https://discourse.julialang.org/u/dilumaluthge)\
**Post date:** [January 2, 2020, 5:51am UTC](https://discourse.julialang.org/t/how-to-garbage-collect-pacakges-regardless-or-last-used-date/32865/2 "2020-01-02T05:51:39Z")

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On master, I believe that you can use `gc --all`.

@00vareladavid will know more.

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<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![xiaodai](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/julialang/user_avatar/discourse.julialang.org/xiaodai/32/15937_2.png) [@xiaodai](https://discourse.julialang.org/u/xiaodai)\
**Post date:** [January 2, 2020, 5:53am UTC](https://discourse.julialang.org/t/how-to-garbage-collect-pacakges-regardless-or-last-used-date/32865/3 "2020-01-02T05:53:24Z")

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by the way `]?gc` didn’t show the options either. Might help add that

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<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![dilumaluthge](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/julialang/user_avatar/discourse.julialang.org/dilumaluthge/32/29283_2.png) [@dilumaluthge](https://discourse.julialang.org/u/dilumaluthge)\
**Post date:** [January 2, 2020, 5:54am UTC](https://discourse.julialang.org/t/how-to-garbage-collect-pacakges-regardless-or-last-used-date/32865/4 "2020-01-02T05:54:26Z")

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On master, if I input `]?gc`, I get this:

```julia
(@v1.4) pkg> ?gc
  gc [--all]

  Free disk space by garbage collecting packages not used for a significant time. The
  --all option will garbage collect all packages which can not be immediately reached
  from any existing project.

```

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<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![xiaodai](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/julialang/user_avatar/discourse.julialang.org/xiaodai/32/15937_2.png) [@xiaodai](https://discourse.julialang.org/u/xiaodai)\
**Post date:** [January 2, 2020, 5:55am UTC](https://discourse.julialang.org/t/how-to-garbage-collect-pacakges-regardless-or-last-used-date/32865/5 "2020-01-02T05:55:00Z")

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> [@dilumaluthge](#):
>
> On master,

I missed that. I am using the julia:1.3 docker image.

![image](https://global.discourse-cdn.com/julialang/original/3X/6/0/60770c42d69478ddf87424d02163e487e8453636.png)

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<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![dilumaluthge](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/julialang/user_avatar/discourse.julialang.org/dilumaluthge/32/29283_2.png) [@dilumaluthge](https://discourse.julialang.org/u/dilumaluthge)\
**Post date:** [January 2, 2020, 5:56am UTC](https://discourse.julialang.org/t/how-to-garbage-collect-pacakges-regardless-or-last-used-date/32865/6 "2020-01-02T05:56:18Z")

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Yeah you’ll need a relatively recent master or a relatively recent nightly.

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**Author:** ![cserteGT3](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/julialang/user_avatar/discourse.julialang.org/csertegt3/32/8283_2.png) [@cserteGT3](https://discourse.julialang.org/u/cserteGT3)\
**Post date:** [January 2, 2020, 7:17am UTC](https://discourse.julialang.org/t/how-to-garbage-collect-pacakges-regardless-or-last-used-date/32865/7 "2020-01-02T07:17:15Z")

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From the [docs](https://julialang.github.io/Pkg.jl/v1/managing-packages/#Garbage-collecting-old,-unused-packages-1)

```julia
using Dates
using Pkg
Pkg.gc(collect_delay=Day(0))

```