Where does R store packages?

The install.packages() function in R is the automatic unzipping utility that gets and install packages in R.

1. How do I find out what directory R has chosen to store packages?

2. How can I change the directory in which R stores and accesses packages?

The install.packages command looks through the .libPaths variable. Here's what mine defaults to on OSX:

> .libPaths()
[1] "/Library/Frameworks/R.framework/Resources/library"

I don't install packages there by default, I prefer to have them installed in my home directory. In my .Rprofile, I have this line:

.libPaths( "/Users/tex/lib/R" )

This adds the directory "/Users/tex/lib/R" to the front of the .libPaths variable.

This is documented in the 'R Installation and Administration' manual that came with your installation.

On my Linux box:

R> .libPaths()
[1] "/usr/local/lib/R/site-library" "/usr/lib/R/site-library"      
[3] "/usr/lib/R/library"           
R> 

meaning that the default path is the first of these. You can override that via an argument to both install.packages() (from inside R) or R CMD INSTALL (outside R).

You can also override by setting the R_LIBS_USER variable.