How to update packages installed with use-package

Question

I'm using use-package to install and configure packages (most of these packages are in melpa). Is there a clean automated way of keeping all these packages up-to-date ?

If not, what is the best work flow in this case ?

Note: A very similar question here with an answer, but I wanted a clarification on "You'll still need to deal with installing updates". I could not comment on the answer for clarification as I do not have enough reputation.

glucas · Accepted Answer · 2022-09-01T20:31:16.873

40

I just do this manually: run list-packages hit Uto mark available upgrades, then review to decide if there are any I don't want to pick up. Then x to upgrade. I do this pretty regularly, and often check what's new at the same time. I've got a couple tweaks to simplify this (see below).

I suspect upgrading could be automated, but you do want to consider the case where an update breaks something and you need to back it out and then prevent your automated updater from just installing it again.

Some package menu tweaks:

(defun package-menu-find-marks ()
  "Find packages marked for action in *Packages*."
  (interactive)
  (occur "^[A-Z]"))

;; Only in Emacs 25.1+
(defun package-menu-filter-by-status (status)
  "Filter the *Packages* buffer by status."
  (interactive
   (list (completing-read
          "Status: " '("new" "installed" "dependency" "obsolete"))))
  (package-menu-filter (concat "status:" status)))

(define-key package-menu-mode-map "s" #'package-menu-filter-by-status)
(define-key package-menu-mode-map "a" #'package-menu-find-marks)

With this I can use s new to just see what packages are newly available. And after hitting U to mark upgrades I can hit a for an occur buffer list of the ones that were marked, in case I want to dig in to details of what changed etc.

UPDATED: Emacs 28 added new package menu commands to filter the package list in various ways, replacing the need for the custom commands above. Use /-? to see the available package-menu-filter-* bindings.

edited Sep 01 '22 at 20:31

answered Apr 02 '17 at 12:44

glucas

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Thanks, the questions is primarily answered. a worked for finding out marked packages. However, s installed or any of the other remaining three statuses returns an empty list. – Jaagrit Sapana Apr 02 '17 at 14:05
What version of Emacs are you using? – glucas Apr 02 '17 at 15:03
I'm using 24.5.1 – Jaagrit Sapana Apr 02 '17 at 22:58
Ah ok. I checked and the package-menu-filter command is new in 25.1, so that command won't work for you. – glucas Apr 03 '17 at 00:20
I do this every Monday morning – Ricky Nelson Mar 08 '19 at 00:52
1

These tweaks are now unnecessary, you can filter packages in recent Emacs versions with the / command. See here – kotchwane Apr 08 '22 at 16:00
Thank you for the instructions! Just one question: does one need to restart Emacs after updating the packages? – pglpm Sep 22 '23 at 16:05

score 18 · Answer 2 · edited Apr 13 '17 at 12:52

18

You can use auto-package-update to automatically update packages.

Copied from my other post (https://emacs.stackexchange.com/a/31903/9972)

(use-package auto-package-update
   :ensure t
   :config
   (setq auto-package-update-delete-old-versions t
         auto-package-update-interval 4)
   (auto-package-update-maybe))

With that setup, packages will be updated every 4 days, and the old packages will be removed.

edited Apr 13 '17 at 12:52

Community

1

answered Apr 03 '17 at 18:15

casch-at

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Doesn't Emacs require to be restarted after a packages update (at least for some packages)? – Denis Bitouzé Dec 04 '20 at 09:00
2

True, but if you put this peace of code before the other packages get loaded, you should be fine. – casch-at Jan 17 '21 at 17:12

score 6 · Answer 3 · edited Mar 06 '19 at 22:46

There is a highly recommended package called paradox that extends package management commands. Read more from https://github.com/Malabarba/paradox

(use-package paradox
  :init
  (setq paradox-github-token t)
  (setq paradox-execute-asynchronously t)
  (setq paradox-automatically-star t))

This setup feeds package usage statistics back to system using a separately set github token and updates packages in the background when you manually run the command paradox-upgrade-packages bound to your keys of choice.

Read the inline documentation of the variable paradox-github-token on how to set it up.

score 3 · Answer 4 · answered Nov 14 '23 at 04:01

3

In Emacs 29.1, you can use M-x package-menu-filter-upgradable to display packages with updates available. M-x package-upgrade-all will install the updates.

answered Nov 14 '23 at 04:01

Luke D Russell

31
1

score 0 · Answer 5 · answered Apr 03 '17 at 07:08

0

Try epm to keep update process clean.

cf. https://github.com/xuchunyang/epm

It can run update process within emacs batch process, without loading normal init.el settings.

answered Apr 03 '17 at 07:08

lurdan

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score 0 · Answer 6 · answered Sep 29 '19 at 05:42

0

Just enter list-packages and pres SHIFT+U. It will mark all installed packages for an update.

answered Sep 29 '19 at 05:42

slk500

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1

It's arguably not fully automatic. – JeanPierre Sep 29 '19 at 07:27

score 0 · Answer 7 · edited May 17 '20 at 19:13

0

Emacs package update sometimes fails.

If package installation is automated using use-package, delete the .emacs.d/elpa directory and reinstall the package.

good luck

edited May 17 '20 at 19:13

Muihlinn

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answered May 17 '20 at 06:55

Soungno Kim

1

How to update packages installed with use-package

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