Clearing Uninstalled Packages from Cache

[jdholtz]

Hello. Just started using this tool and it's very helpful. I was wondering if there is an option to remove all AUR packages not currently installed on my system. This would be what the question Do you want to remove all other AUR packages from cache? when running yay -Sca does.

For example, I download an AUR package. Then I remove it. However, the directory for the AUR package still exists in the cache. Is there an option to remove these directories? If not, I think this would need to be implemented a bit differently than paccache, as the yay cache stores each package inside its own directory (and I don't think paccache has the logic for handling that).

The biggest reason I’d want this is to use it within a libalpm hook. Another possible solution is also running yay -Sca in a hook and only saying yes to the first question.

[aokellermann]

Yes

$ yaycache --help | grep uninstalled
  -u, --uninstalled       	target uninstalled packages

[jdholtz]

Thanks. However, this doesn't remove the package's directory in the cache. For example, I install an AUR package with yay -S <pkg>. I can see the folder exists at ~/.cache/yay/<pkg>. Then, I uninstall it with yay -Rns <pkg> and still see the folder ~/.cache/yay/<pkg> exists.

When I run yaycache -ru, it reports back no candidate packages found for pruning and the folder ~/.cache/yay/<pkg> still exists. My question is if, in its current state, I can remove the entire package's directory (~/.cache/yay/<pkg>), which is what the first question of yay -Sca does.

[aokellermann]

If you don't specify -k, yaycache (like paccache) will default to keeping 3 latest versions of the package. Pass -k0 to keep none.

• yaycache -ruk0: removes all versions of .pkg of uninstalled aur packages
• yaycache -ruk0 --remove-build-files: removes all versions of .pkg of uninstalled AUR packages and any files that untracked files makepkg used to build the package (AUR packages are just git repos containing a PKGBUILD and a few other small files typically).

There is no way in current state to remove ~/.cache/yay/<pkg> but using the above commands the bulky files will be removed.

[jdholtz]

There is no way in current state to remove ~/.cache/yay/ but using the above commands the bulky files will be removed

Would you want me to submit a PR to add support for this when the -u flag is specified?

[aokellermann]

Can you give some context as to why you want to fully delete these directories? I doubt they are taking up much space.

I would just go with the yay -Sca solution you mentioned or do it in pure bash:

cd .cache/yay
comm -23 <(find . -maxdepth 1 -mindepth 1 -type d | sort | cut -f2 -d'/') <(yay -Qqm | sort) | xargs rm -rf

Doing it in yaycache would probably require a new CLI argument which I'm apprehensive about.

[jdholtz]

Can you give some context as to why you want to fully delete these directories? I doubt they are taking up much space.

Just to remove clutter on my filesystem and have a similar functionality in yaycache that yay -Sca has. However, since I can get the same functionality with the first part of yay -Sca, then I'll stick with that. Thanks!