Flatpak: Where do the configuration, profiles, or settings of Flatpak packages live?

[ghost]

Distro:

Linux Mint 18.3

Flatpak Version:

0.10.0

---

This is a question not an issue.

I would like to know I can go about making a backup of the _config files_, _profiles_ or _settings_ and be able to restore or use them on a different machine or after a clean install.

Typical packages store their profiles and settings in ~/.PackageName, others in ~/.config/PackageName, or both.

For example, Atom stores packages in ~/.atom and configuration files in ~/.config/Atom.

I would then run a script that performs a backup:

~ $ rsync -aq --delete ~/.atom/ /Path-To-Backup-Drive/home-dir/atom
~ $ rsync -aq --delete ~/.config/Atom/ /Path-To-Backup-Drive/config-dir/atom

In this manner, I'm able to restore and load the exact same settings on a different computer or on a clean install.

For Flatpak, I was able to follow the general path for both user and system installs, but I didn't see a directory that contains something similar to what the example above contain.

• user path output:

  ~ $ ls ~/.local/share/flatpak/app/App-Name/x86_64/stable/Really-Long-Number/
  ~ $ deploy export/ files/ metadata*
  

• system path output:

  # ls /var/lib/flatpak/app/App-Name/x86_64/stable/Really-Long-Number/
  # deploy export/ files/ metadata
  

How would I go about performing a backup and restoration of _config files_, _profiles_ or _settings_ on Flatpak applications?

I'm trying to wean myself from using PPAs. I'm thinking of using _mostly_ Flatpak hopefully more in the future as more applications become available.

[chergert]

To ensure that applications have private storage space (and cannot snoop on each other), the various XDG dirs are changed from the user defaults. You can find them in ~/.var/app/$app_id/$xdg_dir. So the .config that the org.gnome.Builder Flatpak'd application would use is ~/.var/app/org.gnome.Builder/config/.

You can verify this with something like:

$ flatpak run --command=bash org.gnome.Builder
$ echo $XDG_CONFIG_HOME
/home/christian/.var/app/org.gnome.Builder/config

Keep in mind that applications still might use an additional subdirectory such as gnome-builder in the above case. So .config/gnome-builder/ is instead ~/.var/app/org.gnome.Builder/config/gnome-builder in it's application private space.

[ghost]

Thank you! :relieved: Whew! This was the only thing stopping me from switching my other apps to Flatpak. I didn't know about the existence of ~/.var.

[RoyiAvital]

What about the Desktop Shortcuts?
Where do they go?

For instance in Linux Mint I can see launchers for Flatpak applications in Start Menu but I can't find their .desktop files.

[TingPing]

What about the Desktop Shortcuts?

/var/lib/flatpak/exports/share/applications and ~/.local/share/flatpak/exports/share/applications