Delete inactive patches from Oracle Home

Starting from version 12.2.0.1.37 (April 2023), OPatch automatically cleans up inactive patches, addressing the issue of increasing patch_storage size due to old patches being retained.

Step 1: Check the version of Opatch

cd $ORACLE_HOME/OPatch
opatch version

Step 2: List the inactive patches using the following command

opatch util listorderedinactivepatches

Step 3: Delete the inactive patch

Note: We keep only the latest inactive patch with this command, allowing one patch to remain so the current patch can be rolled back.

opatch util deleteinactivepatches

One another command:

Note: This will clear some space, but it often doesn’t remove all the patches that can be taken out.

opatch util cleanup