Where does bundler store gems?

Question

I know that when using gem install, the gem will be stored under /home/username/.rvm/gems/, under which gemset the gem was installed.

But if I use Bundler and specify the gem in the Gemfile, when I run bundle install, where will those gems be stored? And what if I already installed the gem using gem install, if I run bundle install, will it use the previous gem installed using gem install?

Bundler now says "[DEPRECATED] use `bundle info ` instead of `bundle show `". — nyanpasu64, Jan 02 '21 at 09:49

score 90 · Answer 1 · edited May 14 '20 at 07:02

90

If you want to find out where a particular gem is stored you can run bundle info <gem-name>. For example:

user@host$ bundle info rake
/var/bundle/ruby/2.1.0/gems/rake-10.4.2

For older versions of rake, the command could be bundle show <gem_name>.

edited May 14 '20 at 07:02

Obromios

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answered Sep 17 '15 at 19:55

James Kingsbery

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Does this imply that all gems are just installed on your ruby? – Jwan622 Apr 07 '16 at 22:34
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Note that `bundle show GEM` is deprecated in favor of `bundle info GEM` – Greg Jan 12 '20 at 09:31

Frederick Cheung · Accepted Answer · 2017-12-03T07:06:27.787

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It depends. In the usual development setup they are installed where they would be when you install a gem "normally" (by running gem install foo) and bundler won't reinstall gems that are already there. This location depends on how rubygems itself is configured.

If you run bundle install with the --deployment option then the gems will be installed in a location unique to your app (you can pass this as a separate option but it defaults to vendor/bundle)

You can also run bundle package to store all the .gem files your app uses in vendor/cache. Running bundle install will prefer gems in vendor/cache to gems in other locations.

edited Dec 03 '17 at 07:06

answered Jul 24 '12 at 16:20

Frederick Cheung

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You can also specify the installation path as a parameter to [bundle install](http://gembundler.com/v1.2/bundle_install.html): `$ bundle install --path vendor/bundle` – webwurst Feb 16 '13 at 23:19
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I didn't understand the answer, so what is the default installation path for bundle install? If it's used in development. – Sida Zhou Nov 03 '14 at 19:40
in development, it will install them in the same place as just doing `gem install` would (which depends on GEM_HOME, GEM_PATH etc) – Frederick Cheung Nov 03 '14 at 20:33
So, by default it will install all gems in a system-wide (as opposed to project-specific) location? – David Dec 01 '17 at 07:20
@David it could be system wide or a user specific location, depending on rubygems configuration. – Frederick Cheung Dec 03 '17 at 07:05

score 9 · Answer 3 · answered May 27 '20 at 23:49

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I use bundle config path to see where gems are stored.

answered May 27 '20 at 23:49

bartonstanley

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score 3 · Answer 4 · answered Sep 27 '14 at 11:03

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Here /usr/local/lib/ruby/gems/2.1.0/gems/ and here: /usr/local/lib/ruby/gems/2.1.0/bundler/gems/.

answered Sep 27 '14 at 11:03

Robert Reiz

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I'd imagine this only applies to certain operating systems – James Kingsbery Sep 17 '15 at 19:53
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Do you know how bundler decides which gems go in which directory? – David Winiecki Nov 13 '15 at 18:10

thisismydesign · Answer 5 · 2020-06-18T07:34:47.680

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Note that gems are also installed into the bundle folder within your "Gem Path" (see: bundle env). This happens, for example, with gems installed from git:

gem 'my-gem', git: "https://github.com/x/y.git"

I assume this is so that custom installations don't conflict with installations from a gem server.

edited Jun 18 '20 at 07:34

answered Jan 29 '20 at 14:14

thisismydesign

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Where does bundler store gems?

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