2026-04-27 Getting more information on a FreeBSD pkg without installing it

When browsing through the FreeBSD packages using the pkg tool, I have found quite often I want to get more information that just the name of the package. By default using pkg search without any command line options only returns the most common information desired (name and version).

While you could use something like freshports or some tools around it. There is also a built in way to do this. Let's provide an example using the uemacs port to see how it works in practice.



# Look for uemacs, find the package, version and a short description
$ pkg search uemacs    
uemacs-4.0_1                   Full screen editor

# This only works for pre-installed packages
$ pkg info uemacs
pkg: No package(s) matching uemacs

# An example of a pre-installed package    
$ pkg info FreeBSD-rc  | head
FreeBSD-rc-14.3p5
Name           : FreeBSD-rc
Version        : 14.3p5
Installed on   : Fri Oct 24 10:38:45 2025 CDT
Origin         : base
Architecture   : FreeBSD:14:amd64
Prefix         : /
Categories     : base
Licenses       : BSD2CLAUSE
Maintainer     : re@FreeBSD.org

Luckily, pkg search has the -Q option that offers more information on packages even if not installed. Let's use it.


$ pkg search -Q full uemacs
uemacs-4.0_1
Name           : uemacs
Version        : 4.0_1
Origin         : editors/uemacs
Architecture   : FreeBSD:15:amd64
Prefix         : /usr/local
Repository     : FreeBSD-ports [pkg+https://pkg.FreeBSD.org/FreeBSD:15:amd64/quarterly]
Categories     : editors
Licenses       : uemacs
Maintainer     : mail@ozzmosis.com
WWW            : https://github.com/zoomosis/uemacs
Comment        : Full screen editor
Shared Libs required:
        libc.so.7
        libncursesw.so.9
        libtinfow.so.9
Annotations    :
        FreeBSD_version: 1500068
        build_timestamp: 2026-04-25T11:16:57+0000
        built_by       : poudriere-git-3.4.7-3-gcbf23d95
        port_checkout_unclean: no
        port_git_hash  : 78db3aeaafd6e8351d3fa52693f922e0020da12f
        ports_top_checkout_unclean: no
        ports_top_git_hash: 301f803e259da3e565c7cdadd518508e885f5160
Flat size      : 352KiB
Pkg size       : 129KiB
Description    :
MicroEMACS is a tool for creating and changing documents,
programs, and other text files. It is both relatively easy for the
novice to use, but also very powerful in the hands of an expert.
MicroEMACS can be extensively customized for the needs of the individual
user.

        MicroEMACS allows several files to be edited at the same time.
The screen can be split into different windows and screens, and text may
be moved freely from one window on any screen to the next. Depending on
the type of file being edited, MicroEMACS can change how it behaves to
make editing simple. Editing standard text files, program files and
word processing documents are all possible at the same time.

        There are extensive capabilities to make word processing and
editing easier. These include commands for string searching and
replacing, paragraph reformatting and deleting, automatic word wrapping,
word move and deletes, easy case controlling, and automatic word counts.

Enjoy.

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