Spring cleaning MacPorts

The MacPorts projects offers a fine, easy way to install Unix tools and applications on MacOS X. Over time however, MacPorts can accumulate amounts of dead data, as when applications get updated, the old versions stay until they are removed manually. In addition, after compiling a port from source, both the source and the intermediate object code remains on the harddisk.

Two commands can spring clean the MacPorts installation.

sudo port clean --all installed

will run "make clean" on all installed ports, removing the temporary object code generated during compilation.

sudo port -f uninstall inactive

will remove 'inactive' ports, mainly older versions of applications that have been replaced by a more recent version. Running these two commands can free up some gigabyte of space on a harddisk (depending on the amount of MacPort applications installed).