[solved I think]Timeshift and flatpaks

[HaveaMint]

In a quest to reduce the size of the system snapshots with timeshift I can reduce it quite a bit by excluding /var/lib/flatpak/. My question is when a restore is done will excluding this cause any problems?

[In2Blues]

In a quest to reduce the size of the system snapshots with timeshift I can reduce it quite a bit by excluding /var/lib/flatpak/. My question is when a restore is done will excluding this cause any problems?

Not an expert here but I'm going to assume that if you installed any flatpak packages then they would not be restored with Timeshift. You would have to reinstall them manually. It shouldn't affect anything else.

[ajgringo619]

One way to avoid this problem is to switch your flatpaks to your user account. By default, flatpaks on Mint use the system repo, installing everything to the folder you mentioned above. If you switch to the user repo, they will be installed to ~/.local/share/flatpak. There will still be a few files saved under /var/lib/flatpak, but the space used is negligible.

If you're interested on how to do this, let me know.

[HaveaMint]

If you're interested on how to do this, let me know.

Yes that would be nice TY.

[ajgringo619]

If you're interested on how to do this, let me know.

Yes that would be nice TY.

OK - this is a 3-step process.

• Uninstall all of your current flatpaks, then remove the system repo:

  Code: Select all

  flatpak remote-delete flathub

• Next, add the user repo:

  Code: Select all

  flatpak remote-add --if-not-exists --user flathub https://flathub.org/repo/flathub.flatpakrepo

• Now you can reinstall your apps

As a test, just install something small, then run flatpak list --user, then flatpak list --system. This will confirm that you added the repo correctly.

[HaveaMint]

Thanks AJ

[HaveaMint]

If I'm reading your steps correct I can assume if it isn't included in my timeshift snapshots then on a restore without the flatpaks it would break anything I have installed with flatpaks.
I guess that answers the original question also.

[ajgringo619]

If I'm reading your steps correct I can assume if it isn't included in my timeshift snapshots then on a restore without the flatpaks it would break anything I have installed with flatpaks.
I guess that answers the original question also.

Yes. Since Timeshift omits home directories, the flatpaks would also be omitted.

[HaveaMint]

Hmmm time to modify settings on TS then thanks.