title: Clean out Eclipse workspace metadata
body: <p>I use multiple workspaces with Eclipse. I recently noticed that some of my workspaces have a lot of cruft in them from software packages that I installed and then later removed. As far as I can tell, the situation is that many packages write stuff (sometimes a lot of stuff) to the .metadata folder for every workspace I open while the package was installed. When I removed a package, it seems to clean out the .metadata folder for the workspace that I happen to have open at the time, but all the other workspaces are left with orphaned metadata. Sometimes this metadata causes problems&mdash;often, errors while opening the workspace and sometimes instability.</p>
  
  <p>The only way I know to deal with this is to create a new workspace, import projects from the polluted workspace, reconstructing all my settings (a major pain) and then delete the old workspace. Is there an easier way to deal with this?</p>