I have found extending 'apt' history to be the best way of tracking what was installed but don't know if there is any tool to process that; I wrote my own. It also requires doing that extending within the first year or you may not see the early stuff, and that's usually stuff you will want to install.What would really be nice is a way to tell all the packages that *YOU* installed, as opposed to those that "came with" the system.
And, yes, I am well aware that the best way to handle this is with fore-thought - that is, to keep track of it from the beginning - but of course, if you did that, well, you wouldn't be asking the question.
If using 'apt list --installed' then a '.info' file which shows what came with the OS install can often be found on Raspberry Pi's Downloads page. An 'fc' file compare of the two will show what has been installed, but will show packages rather than just applications..
Statistics: Posted by hippy — Sat Jan 31, 2026 9:17 pm