`M-x package-delete RET package-name TAB RET`
Packages have to be deleted manually, it seems. I was unable to find any command that would cross reference the `init.el` file and check which packages are not being used and clean them up.
I started using Emacs in February 2020. A few months after using Emacs without any list completion framework, I installed Helm and started using it. Helm was very good back then.
However, as I have gotten more proficient at Elisp and started writing more functions and importing
more packages into my configuration, I am seeing that Helm is too slow for some actions. For e.g.,
the simple action of showing the list of notes under org-roam takes a noticeable half-second.
To solve this performance problem, I switched to Ivy. Ivy is a simple list completion framework. It does not do anything else. It simply adds the fuzzy completion feature to whichever Emacs command provides a list for selection.
The Ivy package actually has 3 components: Ivy (list completion for commands that provide lists already), Counsel (list completion for everything, including enhanced completion for commands that don’t provide lists or have dynamic list generating functinos), Swiper (an ivy-powered interactive search inside a single buffer). Counsel includes both Swiper and Ivy.