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cl-netbox
Asked: 2017-03-23 04:15:14 +0800 CST

Old Ubuntu core snap versions are filling up disk space

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I am running Ubuntu 16.10 with snapd and the basic core snap installed since it was released.
After some time I observed that the /snap/core directory fills up with multiple older versions.
To remove them I'll have to execute sudo snap remove core --revision <number> manually.

Multiple versions of snaps & garbage collection section in Snaps and snapcraft documentation explains that after every update of a snap package the current version and the one before are installed and older versions are getting automatically removed (just as it was earlier the case).

As I cannot find further information in snap help, I am asking whether there is a setting or a switch command in snapd to enable automatic removal of those older core snap packages.
Additional information : What I described is valid for 3 machines with the same configuration.

snap

3 Answers

  1. This post lists several solutions for older snap version removing:

    Manual script by popey to delete "all old versions of snaps"

    #!/bin/bash
# https://superuser.com/a/1330590
# Removes old revisions of snaps
# CLOSE ALL SNAPS BEFORE RUNNING THIS set -eu

snap list --all | awk '/disabled/{print $1, $3}' |
    while read snapname revision; do
        snap remove "$snapname" --revision="$revision"
    done

    And "snap set system refresh.retain" setting for "snap 2.34 and later" by Mustapha Hadid to store only 2 revisions of every snap:

    $ sudo snap set system refresh.retain=2

    The refresh.retain value can only be a number between 2 and 20 and has a default value of 3

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  2. Best Answer

    Right now I don't believe it's possible to change the number of old versions of any snap, that's set at 3. If you see more than that, it's likely a bug, so should be filed at https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/snapd

    • 6

  3. use a command like this :-

    sudo snap remove chromium       --revision 1461

    where

    chromium = example software
1461 = example revision

    you can use "mount | grep snap" to find versions

    or

    snap list --all | awk '/disabled/{print $1, $3}'

    for old versions

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