Keeping your .emacs.d clean

How often do you have a look at your .emacs.d directory? If you’re anything like me, not that often. It’s no wonder then that upon opening it I was horrified to see it cluttered with all sorts of files from all the packages I regularly use.

Jonas Bernoulli, of Magit fame, must be feeling similar concerns. Otherwise, why did he come up with a package like no-littering?

Installation is trivial, especially if you use the great use-package:

(use-package no-littering               ; Keep .emacs.d clean
  :ensure t
  :config
  (require 'recentf)
  (add-to-list 'recentf-exclude no-littering-var-directory)
  (add-to-list 'recentf-exclude no-littering-etc-directory))

No extra setup is required. Place this snippet somewhere at the beginning of your init.el file and you are set. Use Emacs for a while and then go back checking .emacs.d: nice, huh?

To be honest, I wiped out my .emacs.d directory and started from fresh with no-littering installed. Too much, maybe, but I was eager to see how good this package is. And yes, it is good.

House-cleaning has never been so easy.