Will updating Qiime 2 write over previous installations?

[spark123]

I found # this question about installing older versions, but my question is a little different. We are currently running 2024.5 in my lab, but I see there were some important updates and would like to install the newest version. After I update it, will I still be able to use 2024.5 and how can I make sure there are no issues with having both versions?

[colinbrislawn (Colin J Brislawn)]

Each version of Qiime will be installed to it's own conda environment.

Updating Qiime2 will NOT overwrite previous installs. In fact, the old versions will stay around taking up disk space, unless you manually remove their conda environments!

For example, here is what I have installed on my laptop now:

(base) cbrisl@CB-MacBook-Air ~ % conda info -e

# conda environments:
#
# *  -> active
# + -> frozen
base                 *   /Users/cbrisl/miniforge3
qiime2-amplicon-2025.10  /Users/cbrisl/miniforge3/envs/qiime2-amplicon-2025.10
qiime2-amplicon-2025.4   /Users/cbrisl/miniforge3/envs/qiime2-amplicon-2025.4
qiime2-amplicon-2025.7   /Users/cbrisl/miniforge3/envs/qiime2-amplicon-2025.7
r25                      /Users/cbrisl/miniforge3/envs/r25

Then I can run conda activate qiime2-amplicon-2025.4 to use that version of Qiime2.

[spark123]

Awesome, so literally just update normally and then I can use whichever version I want with
conda activate qiime2-amplicon-[desired version]?

[ebolyen (Evan Bolyen)]

Yep, that is correct!