How to delete unused packages from solution?

Question

Hello,

I have a solution with two project (WPF and WCF) and I added as another project a ASP.Net app. I removed the ASP.Net application from my solution, but all packages are still there.

How to delete the unused packages (are not visible in Package Manager)?

Best regards,

Answer 1

If you have removed the ASP.NET application project from your solution but the packages associated with it are still present, you can follow these steps to delete the unused packages:

Close Visual Studio: Before making any changes, ensure that Visual Studio is closed. This will prevent any conflicts or issues while removing the packages.

Manually delete package references: Open the project files of your WPF and WCF projects using a text editor (e.g., Notepad, Visual Studio Code). Look for any references to the packages that are no longer needed. These references usually exist in the project file with <PackageReference> elements. Remove the entire <PackageReference> element for each package that you want to remove. Save the changes after removing the references.

Remove package folders: After deleting the package references, navigate to the solution directory using Windows Explorer or any file explorer tool. Look for a folder named "packages" in the solution directory. This folder contains the downloaded NuGet packages. Delete the folders corresponding to the packages you removed from the project files.

Clean and Rebuild: Open your solution in Visual Studio and perform a Clean and Rebuild operation. This will remove any remaining artifacts or references to the deleted packages and ensure that your solution is rebuilt without them.

By following these steps, you should be able to remove the unused packages from your solution. Remember to review and update any code or functionality that might depend on the removed packages to avoid any compilation or runtime errors.

Answer 2

Hello @B M-A ,

Welcome to Microsoft Q&A forum.

You can go to Tools => NuGet Package Manager => Package Manager Settings => Package Restore => check Allow NuGet to download missing packages and Automatically check for missing packages during build in Visual Studio options.

After that close VS => rename the packages folder in your solution folder => restart VS => rebuild your solution, the Nuget packages which are used in WPF and WCF projects will be reinstalled automatically.

Normally, the information of the used Nuget packages will be set in project file(like .csproj file => <ItemGroup> => <Reference Include="…">). So the projects know the used Nuget packages. Restoring Nuget packages may cost some time if the projects use many Nuget packages, so deleting the folders of unused Nuget packages manually may be another method.

Sincerely,

Tianyu

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Answer 3

you just delete the package folders.