My ~/.emacs (which you can find on GitHub) file loads several different Emacs packages and I would like them to be automatically installed as soon as Emacs starts up, if they are not already installed. This way if I have to reinstall my Ubuntu 16.04 operating system again I will not have to install each package myself manually using M-x package-install. Is there a way to write an ~/.emacs file so that it will automatically install all loaded packages on startup? I would like this to be done with the minimum of lines as I have over ten different packages loaded so if I have to add extra lines for each individual package it will make my ~/.emacs rather long.
2 Answers
The easiest way is to install use-package.
(package-initialize)
(require 'package)
(add-to-list 'package-archives
'("melpa" . "http://melpa.milkbox.net/packages/") t)
(dolist (package '(use-package))
(unless (package-installed-p package)
(package-install package)))
Then
(use-package paredit
:ensure t)
The :ensure t is what ensures that the package is installed.
To just load ensure multiple packages are install
(dolist (package '(package-a package-b package-c))
(unless (package-installed-p package)
(package-install package))
(require package))))
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Can you specify multiple packages for it to load on a single line? Nov 26, 2016 at 14:38
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Well my question is about multiple packages so please edit your answer so that it does just that, loads and if not present, automatically installs, multiple packages. Nov 26, 2016 at 14:49
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the dolist can be changed to '(use-package 'some-other-package), but no other configuration can be done. I would recommend having a line for each package with use-package. Nov 26, 2016 at 14:50
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1@njdan5691 You should have something like
(unless package-archive-contents (package-refresh-contents)), because unless you have somehow refreshed the package archives at least once, you can't install anything. Note that this hits the network. Also, the(require 'package)is redundant, becausepackage-initializeis autoloaded.– jpkottaDec 20, 2017 at 18:17
package.el keeps track of the packages you asked to install (as opposed to those that are auto-installed as dependencies) in the custom variable package-selected-packages.
So if you copy your ~/.emacs (in which Custom normally writes settings like that of package-selected-packages) to another system, all you should need to do is M-x package-install-selected-packages.
Of course, this doesn't automatically install the packages if they're absent, but I consider it a feature (I think it's a mistake for a program like Emacs to make network connections without an explicit request to do so). And it does save you the trouble of installing each package one by one.
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Thanks. I just want to share my use case, which is different than that of the OP: I'm often transferring my dotfiles between machines (especially cloud, where they are created and killed all the time). The package directory is quite hefty, with elpy v-env and the kitchen sink, especially given old versions are not auto-trimmed, AFAIK. It's much easier to drop in a few small files and reinstall packages than carry them around.– kkmMay 18, 2020 at 3:11
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I forgot to mention one thing:
(package-refresh-contents)needs to be invoked once before(package-install-selected-packages)when the local package directory is entirely missing, so that package distribution archive directories are cached first in subdirectories of itsarchive/directory.– kkmMay 18, 2020 at 4:52
use-package, like I do on line 61 of my .emacs file?package-install-selected-packages(requires Emacs 25.1).~/.emacsfile from getting "long." But if you are only loading a dozen packages, are you really concerned about the extra 11 lines in your config?