What is the difference between the 'pkgs' directory and the 'site-packages' directory? [Anaconda]

Question

[Anaconda3, Windows]

What are the explicit differences between the directories 'site-packages' and 'pkgs' in my Anaconda3 (base python env) folder?

Additionally, I would like to know why 'pkgs' is significantly larger in size than 'site-packages.' On my disk 'pkgs' is 8.0 GB with 112,005 items while 'site-packages' is 1.9 GB with 57,580 items.

I have read the following link : What's the difference between anaconda2/Lib/site-packages/<pkg> and anaconda2/pkgs/<pkg>?

I assume the difference to have to do with caching. Any knowledge or insight is appreciated.

Answer 1

packages in the Anaconda3/Lib/site-packages folder is where Python looks to import packages.

whereas packages in the Anaconda3/pkgs folder are the packages that are downloaded and extracted by Conda when you specify an update or install.

It all Depends on your settings, the folders in Anaconda2/Lib/site-packages may be symlinks or hardlinks to the equivalent folder in Anaconda2/pkgs, or it might be a copy.

See the documentation for clear picture.