# What are active scratchspaces and how to manage them?

**URL:** <https://discourse.julialang.org/t/what-are-active-scratchspaces-and-how-to-manage-them/109445>\
**Category:** General Usage\
**Created:** [January 30, 2024, 12:34pm UTC](https://discourse.julialang.org/t/what-are-active-scratchspaces-and-how-to-manage-them/109445 "2024-01-30T12:34:39Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 2\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![homocomputeris](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/julialang/user_avatar/discourse.julialang.org/homocomputeris/32/8933_2.png) [@homocomputeris](https://discourse.julialang.org/u/homocomputeris)\
**Post date:** [January 30, 2024, 12:34pm UTC](https://discourse.julialang.org/t/what-are-active-scratchspaces-and-how-to-manage-them/109445/1 "2024-01-30T12:34:39Z")

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Pkg.jl outputs

```julia
pkg> gc
      Active manifest files: 8 found
      Active artifact files: 121 found
      Active scratchspaces: 3 found
     Deleted no artifacts, repos, packages or scratchspaces

```

The docs do not have anything on this topic: [Search · Pkg.jl](https://pkgdocs.julialang.org/v1/search/?q=stratchspaces)

What are those and how to manage them?

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![abraemer](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/julialang/user_avatar/discourse.julialang.org/abraemer/32/51403_2.png) [@abraemer](https://discourse.julialang.org/u/abraemer)\
**Post date:** [January 30, 2024, 12:43pm UTC](https://discourse.julialang.org/t/what-are-active-scratchspaces-and-how-to-manage-them/109445/2 "2024-01-30T12:43:19Z")

</div>

See here:

> **[GitHub - JuliaPackaging/Scratch.jl: Scratch spaces for all your persistent...](https://github.com/JuliaPackaging/Scratch.jl?tab=readme-ov-file)**
>
> Scratch spaces for all your persistent mutable data needs - GitHub - JuliaPackaging/Scratch.jl: Scratch spaces for all your persistent mutable data needs

So these are locations where packages can store data they want to mutate.

Usually you don’t manage them. And probably should not. [Here at the bottom](https://pkgdocs.julialang.org/v1/creating-packages/#Best-Practices) it notes:

> Scratch spaces are designed for data caches that are completely managed by a package and should be removed when the package itself is uninstalled.