The Complete Guide to Updating Rlang + Troubleshooting Solutions

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Try one of these methods to update rlang quickly & easily

Co-authored by Hannah Dillon Reviewed by Luigi Oppido

Last Updated: June 21, 2025 Fact Checked

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• Updating Rlang With a Command
|
• Updating Rlang With the RStudio GUI
|
• Troubleshooting

|Show more |Show less

Are you trying to update your rlang package in RStudio or the R Console? This package is notoriously finicky to update, so if you're struggling to update it, you're not alone! In this article, we'll go over how to update rlang with a command, as well as in the RStudio GUI. We have included some troubleshooting tips for the most common issues when updating rlang.

Quick Steps to Update Your Rlang Package

1. Clear your R environment with rm(list = ls ()).
2. Restart RStudio or R Console, making sure not to load any packages once it restarts.
3. Run the command install.packages("rlang") to update rlang.

Steps

Section 1 of 3:

Updating Rlang With a Command

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1. 
   1
   Clear your R environment. You can do this in both RStudio or the R Console, whichever you prefer working with. Run the following command to clear your R environment:

   rm(list = ls ())
2. 
   2
   Restart RStudio or R Console. The reason you want to clear your R environment and restart RStudio or the R Console is to ensure no other packages load that use rlang. This will cause issues when trying to update the package.

   • In RStudio, you can alternatively press Ctrl+Shift+F10 to clear your global environment and restart the application.
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3. 
   3
   Run the rlang installation command. When you restart RStudio or R Console, make sure to update your rlang package before you do anything else to avoid errors or the update not working. The command to update rlang is as follows:

   install.packages("rlang")

   • If you need to update rlang to a specific version, not just the latest, you can use this command, where [url] is the URL to the package on CRAN's website:

     install.packages("[URL]", repo=NULL, type= "source")

   • You can also choose to update all of your R packages (including rlang) with the following command:

     update.packages(checkBuilt = TRUE)
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Section 2 of 3:

Updating Rlang With the RStudio GUI

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1. 
   1
   Open RStudio. If RStudio is currently open on your computer, close it and open it again. You can press Ctrl+Shift+F10 to restart RStudio while also clearing the global environment.
2. 
   2
   Click on Packages. It's a tab near the top of the window, between Plots and Help. Do this before you do anything else in RStudio to avoid getting errors when updating rlang.

   • You can use this window to check your rlang version if you're not sure what version you're using.
3. 
   3
   Tick the checkbox next to rlang. This indicates that you only want to update rlang. You can check multiple boxes here if you want to update multiple packages.
4. 
   4
   Click Update. It's above your package list, with a green arrow button. This will check for any updates for the selected packages (rlang, in this case).

   • Follow the steps presented in the GUI to update rlang.
   • You can also check for updates by clicking the Tools menu and selecting Check for Package Updates….
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Section 3 of 3:

Troubleshooting

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1. 
   1
   RStudio's environment doesn't clear when pressing Ctrl+⇧ Shift+F10. You likely have your settings set to save your workspace to .RData when RStudio closes. You can fix this by doing the following:

   • Go to Tools > Global Options… > General. The "General" tab is the top tab in your RStudio settings and should open by default.
   • Uncheck the box next to "Restore .RData into workspace at startup".
   • In the dropdown next to "Save workspace to .RData on exit", select Never.
   • Click Apply, then OK to save your settings. RStudio will now clear your global environment the next time you restart.
2. 
   2
   RStudio/R Console gives an error when trying to update rlang. Many packages are dependent on rlang. If these packages are loaded in RStudio or R Console, you won't be able to update the package. If restarting RStudio/R Console with a clear environment doesn't help, you may have to uninstall rlang completely and reinstall the newer version.

   • Load the installer package by running the following command:

     library(installr)

   • Uninstall rlang with the following command:

     uninstall.packages("rlang")

   • Restart RStudio or R Console.
   • Install rlang with the following command:

     install.packages("rlang", dependencies = TRUE)
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