var/cache/apt/archives occupying huge space

Question

I am in the process of cleaning up my system. And I see a lot of space occupied by this folder /var/cache/apt/archives (1.5GB). Is it absolutely necessary to keep all these archives?

Answer 1

You don't need to keep them around if you don't want them. Executing a

sudo apt-get clean

will clean out the directory.

Answer 2

Seems like

sudo apt-get autoclean

is a better choice than

sudo apt-get clean

autoclean will only remove "useless" archives

From the man page:

Like clean, autoclean clears out the local repository of retrieved package files. The difference is that it only removes package files that can no longer be downloaded, and are largely useless. This allows a cache to be maintained over a long period without it growing out of control. The configuration option APT::Clean-Installed will prevent installed packages from being erased if it is set to off.

Answer 3

You can adjust settings in Synaptic package manager, menu Settings/Preferences, the Files tab. From there you can also delete the cache.

Answer 4

If you have automatic unattended upgrades, like a Google Cloud VM has, you can today read the information in this file:

/usr/lib/apt/apt.systemd.daily

Then add and adjust a new file here:

/etc/apt/apt.conf.d/10periodic

The most relevant settings, I think, are these:

#  APT::Archives::MaxAge "0"; (old, deprecated)
#  APT::Periodic::MaxAge "0"; (new)
#  - Set maximum allowed age of a cache package file. If a cache.
#    package file is older it is deleted (0=disable)

and maybe even more so these two:

#  APT::Periodic::AutocleanInterval "0";
#  - Do "apt-get autoclean" every n-days (0=disable)
#
#  APT::Periodic::CleanInterval "0";
#  - Do "apt-get clean" every n-days (0=disable)

I had to add the bottom two, because my VM was running out of space and the apt cache was several GBs of old junk.

I added them like this.

APT::Periodic::AutocleanInterval "7";
// Do "apt-get autoclean" every n-days (0=disable)
APT::Periodic::CleanInterval "7";
// Do "apt-get clean" every n-days (0=disable)

And maybe even only the last setting is necessary, as it cleans more than auto-clean does.

APT::Periodic::CleanInterval "7";
// Do "apt-get clean" every n-days (0=disable)

Answer 5

It is better to save packages elsewhere then clean it up [Jorge Castro's process]. When you reinstall OS or a package it will not download again which save time and bandwidth. apt-get first check require packages in local storage[/var/cache/apt/archives] if does not exists then download else just do install. So you can save packages for future uses.