diff --git a/fisher.fish b/fisher.fish
index 472948a..6bea76b 100644
--- a/fisher.fish
+++ b/fisher.fish
@@ -189,7 +189,7 @@ function _fisher_commit
         command touch $fishfile
         echo "created empty fishfile in $fishfile" | command sed "s|$HOME|~|" >&2
     end
-    printf "%s\n" (_fisher_fishfile_format (echo -s $argv\;) < $fishfile) > $fishfile
+    printf "%s\n" (_fisher_fishfile_format (echo -s $argv\;) (echo -s $removed_pkgs\;) < $fishfile) > $fishfile
 
     set -l expected_pkgs (_fisher_fishfile_read < $fishfile)
     set -l added_pkgs (_fisher_pkg_fetch_all $expected_pkgs)
@@ -374,8 +374,8 @@ function _fisher_fishfile_read
     command awk -v FS=\# '!/^#/ && NF { print $1 }'
 end
 
-function _fisher_fishfile_format -a pkgs
-    command awk -v PWD=$PWD -v HOME=$HOME -v PKGS="$pkgs" '
+function _fisher_fishfile_format -a pkgs removed_pkgs
+    command awk -v PWD=$PWD -v HOME=$HOME -v PKGS="$pkgs" -v REMOVED_PKGS="$removed_pkgs" '
         BEGIN {
             pkg_count = split(PKGS, pkgs, ";") - 1
             cmd = pkgs[1]
@@ -401,10 +401,15 @@ function _fisher_fishfile_format -a pkgs
             } else if (newln) newln = "\n"(newln > 0 ? "" : newln)
         }
         END {
-            if (cmd == "rm" || pkg_count <= 1) exit
-            for (i = 2; i <= pkg_count; i++) {
-                if (!seen_pkgs[pkg_ids[i - 1]]) print pkgs[i]
+            if (cmd == "rm" || pkg_count <= 1) {
+                split(REMOVED_PKGS, tmp, ";")
+                for (i in tmp) removed_pkgs[normalize(tmp[i])] = i
+                for (i in pkg_ids) if (!(pkg_ids[i] in removed_pkgs)) {
+                    print "cannot remove \"" pkg_ids[i] "\" -- package not found" > "/dev/stderr"
+                }
+                exit
             }
+            for (i in pkg_ids) if (!seen_pkgs[pkg_ids[i]]) print pkgs[i+1]
         }
         function normalize(s) {
             gsub(/^[ \t]*(https?:\/\/)?(.*github\.com\/)?|[\/ \t]*$/, "", s)