Removing packages installed with go get

I ran go get package to download a package before learning that I needed to set my GOPATH otherwise that package sullies my root Go install (I would much prefer to keep my Go install clean and separate core from custom). How do I remove packages installed previously?

It's safe to just delete the source directory and compiled package file. Find the source directory under $GOPATH/src and the package file under $GOPATH/pkg/<architecture>, for example: $GOPATH/pkg/windows_amd64.

You can delete the archive files and executable binaries that go install (or go get) produces for a package with go clean -i importpath.... These normally reside under $GOPATH/pkg and $GOPATH/bin, respectively.

Be sure to include ... on the importpath, since it appears that, if a package includes an executable, go clean -i will only remove that and not archive files for subpackages, like gore/gocode in the example below.

Source code then needs to be removed manually from $GOPATH/src.

go clean has an -n flag for a dry run that prints what will be run without executing it, so you can be certain (see go help clean). It also has a tempting -r flag to recursively clean dependencies, which you probably don't want to actually use since you'll see from a dry run that it will delete lots of standard library archive files!

A complete example, which you could base a script on if you like:

$ go get -u github.com/motemen/gore

$ which gore
/Users/ches/src/go/bin/gore

$ go clean -i -n github.com/motemen/gore...
cd /Users/ches/src/go/src/github.com/motemen/gore
rm -f gore gore.exe gore.test gore.test.exe commands commands.exe commands_test commands_test.exe complete complete.exe complete_test complete_test.exe debug debug.exe helpers_test helpers_test.exe liner liner.exe log log.exe main main.exe node node.exe node_test node_test.exe quickfix quickfix.exe session_test session_test.exe terminal_unix terminal_unix.exe terminal_windows terminal_windows.exe utils utils.exe
rm -f /Users/ches/src/go/bin/gore
cd /Users/ches/src/go/src/github.com/motemen/gore/gocode
rm -f gocode.test gocode.test.exe
rm -f /Users/ches/src/go/pkg/darwin_amd64/github.com/motemen/gore/gocode.a

$ go clean -i github.com/motemen/gore...

$ which gore

$ tree $GOPATH/pkg/darwin_amd64/github.com/motemen/gore
/Users/ches/src/go/pkg/darwin_amd64/github.com/motemen/gore

0 directories, 0 files

# If that empty directory really bugs you...
$ rmdir $GOPATH/pkg/darwin_amd64/github.com/motemen/gore

$ rm -rf $GOPATH/src/github.com/motemen/gore

Note that this information is based on the go tool in Go version 1.5.1.

A go package can be removed as follows.

go get package@none

Here @none is the version part set as none. Thus removing the package.

You can use go mod tidy to clean unused packages

#!/bin/bash

goclean() {
 local pkg=$1; shift || return 1
 local ost
 local cnt
 local scr

 # Clean removes object files from package source directories (ignore error)
 go clean -i $pkg &>/dev/null

 # Set local variables
 [[ "$(uname -m)" == "x86_64" ]] \
 && ost="$(uname)";ost="${ost,,}_amd64" \
 && cnt="${pkg//[^\/]}"

 # Delete the source directory and compiled package directory(ies)
 if (("${#cnt}" == "2")); then
  rm -rf "${GOPATH%%:*}/src/${pkg%/*}"
  rm -rf "${GOPATH%%:*}/pkg/${ost}/${pkg%/*}"
 elif (("${#cnt}" > "2")); then
  rm -rf "${GOPATH%%:*}/src/${pkg%/*/*}"
  rm -rf "${GOPATH%%:*}/pkg/${ost}/${pkg%/*/*}"
 fi

 # Reload the current shell
 source ~/.bashrc
}

Usage:

# Either launch a new terminal and copy `goclean` into the current shell process, 
# or create a shell script and add it to the PATH to enable command invocation with bash.

goclean github.com/your-username/your-repository

Man, i got same problem yesterday. Could't find anything in $GOPATH/pkg/<architecture> . Then, i realized that there was a go directory in my $HOME. So, i moved to $HOME/<username>/go/pkg/mod/github.com and saw all package i had installed from github by go get