On Jun 25, 2025, at 14:29, Gerben Wierda wrote: > > My understanding is that reclaim does only remove unused stuff. > > At some point I have many versions of python on my systems, and not only that > different systems had ports that were using different versions of supporting > ports (like python 3.9 versus 3.10). As these were ‘used’ they are not > removed by reclaim. > > So, the only way to get a fully clean (no ports installed at all) MacPorts is > > sudo port -f uninstall installed > sudo port -N reclaim > > After which you can reinstall your ports. A port that used to rely on python > 3.9 gets freshly configured to use 3.10, where simply updating the port keeps > the old choice in place.
I concur with Saj that what you're doing is not expected to be necessary. Reclaim frees disk space by uninstalling ports you don't need anymore and in other ways. If you are referring to ports that let you choose a version of e.g. python... MacPorts preserves variant selections across upgrades. That used to mean that if a port defaulted to say python310 then you would continue to get python310 across upgrades even if the default had subsequently changed. This was fixed in MacPorts 2.7.0 four years ago. Variants that you did not explicitly request, but which were only chosen by default, are no longer remembered in your installation so that new defaults will take effect when you upgrade ports. See https://trac.macports.org/ticket/46956
