How to move/copy a flatpak installation to another computer

[ikabod]

Hello,

is it possible to simply move/copy currently installed flatpaks from one computer to another?

Thanks, Peter

[razzeee]

I usually recommend to take your whole home folder with you, then you just need to reinstall the flatpaks you were using and all settings should restore themselves.

[bbhtt]

If you want a mostly offline approach, create-usb is the best bet https://docs.flatpak.org/en/latest/usb-drives.html

This won't help in edge cases where your host and target machines need different graphics drivers and also won't copy any application data eg. in ~/.var/app/<app-id>.

[ikabod]

In other words: There is no simple way to copy/move a flatpak installation to another computer.

So I stay with AppImages and the disadvantages of them (not all are running on my Distribution (Manjaro), some programs are not available as AppImage at all and some (lot?) of them are outdated/abandoned).

Thanks nevertheless for your answers.

[razzeee]

I don't think app images move their data from system to system, so you have the same problem there. (as you don't want to leak your data, just by copying/uploading your app image)

[ikabod]

Copying configuration folders to another machine is for me not complicated (see my first post).

My AppImages are stored on a shared folder (I work only with virtual machines). If I want to use my AppImages on another machine, I only have to copy the configuration folders.

The approach with an offline repository is a possibility to work around the downloading problem (important for people with mobile/limited Internet connection). Nevertheless you have to install Flatpak on the target machine first.

On my Manjaro installation the basic Flatpak system without any apps is about 4.1 GB. Currently I have 11 AppImages with a total of 1.5 GB. Blender as a Flatpak app uses 1.2 GB of diskspace. As an AppImage about 200 MB (unfortunately it is not working at all).

Copying Flatpak to another machine needs:

• copy the existing Flatpak repository to a shared location
• install Flatpak on the target machine
• add the shared Flatpak repository to the target machine
• update the Flatpak installation on the target machine
• copy the configuration folders to the target machine

Size of downloaded data: at least I would guess about 500 MB without apps

Copying AppImages to another machine needs:

• copy the AppImages to the target machine
• copy the configuration folders to the target machine

Size of downloaded data: 0 bit

As already mentioned, in my personal situation I have only to copy the configuration folders.

[razzeee]

Copying configuration folders to another machine is for me not complicated (see my first post).

Copy ~/.var/ then, well behaved apps will save their data there

Currently I have 11 AppImages with a total of 1.5 GB. Blender as a Flatpak app uses 1.2 GB of diskspace.

Might be true, but you are ignoring your filesystem deduplication, which would reduce this, especially if you have more flatpaks.

[ikabod]

I found out something interesting yesterday. It is possible also to store the configuration data in the same folder as the AppImage itself.

This makes the whole thing completely portable. If you switch the (virtual) computer and/or the operating system, you need only access to the folder with the AppImages:

https://docs.appimage.org/user-guide/portable-mode.html

For me this is a big time saver, since after (almost every) update in Manjaro Apps broke due to dependency problems and some Apps fall back to the default language of the user interface (English) instead to keep the setting (in my case German).

[razzeee]

We're way offtopic, but that sounds more like a problem with manjaro and doesn't sound like those apps were flatpaks.