best way to clean the .config directory

[seth hurst]

Was wondering the best way to clean the .config directory? Would it be
better to make the changes to my programs and settings then backup the
directory?

[Marco Moock]

What do you want to clean?
That directory contains user specific configuration files for the
applications. You can delete folders there, but this will reset the
application's preferences.

[seth hurst]

On Thu, 16 Feb 2023 15:15:26 +0100, Marco Moock wrote:

> Am 16.02.2023 schrieb seth hurst <hursts...@gmail.com>:
>

>> [quoted text muted]

>
> What do you want to clean?
> That directory contains user specific configuration files for the
> applications. You can delete folders there, but this will reset the
> application's preferences.

it sometimes gets full after a wile of installing and
uninstalling programs. I would like to not delete the folders for the
programs I already have on my system but for the ones that are not
installed. archlinux on a 1tb drive with a 6tb exsternal. Vanella arch
running lxde-gtk3 version.

[Dan Purgert]

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If you've removed the program, then you can certainly nuke
$HOME/.config/program -- but honestly most configs are really small, a
quick check here is on average under 1 MiB (and then there's Unity
sitting at just under a GiB...).

Discounting unity, there's like 100 MiB worth of actual config files in
there; even if I somehow cleaned 90% of that, the freed space is nothing
more than rounding error.

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|_|_|O| Github: https://github.com/dpurgert
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[Blue-Maned_Hawk]

On 2/16/23 11:29, Dan Purgert wrote:
> Discounting unity, there's like 100 MiB worth of actual config files in

> [.config]; even if I somehow cleaned 90% of that, the freed space is

> nothing more than rounding error.
>

​Maybe it's rounding error for _your_ system, but that doesn't mean it
is for others.

--
⚗︎ | /blu.mɛin.dʰak/ | shortens to "Hawk" | he/him/his/himself/Mr.
bluemanedhawk.github.io
Bitches stole my whole ass ␔🭖᷿᪳𝼗᷍⏧𒒫𐻾ࣛ↉�⃣ quoted-printable, can't
have shit in Thunderbird 😩

[J.O. Aho]

There is no best way, tend to be a manaul work to clean up after
programs as they can store files in many places like ~/.local/share
~/.cache and so on.

Take a backup of your config directory, then you can restore config if
you happen to remove the config. If you use btrfs, then just take a new
read only snapshot just before you start and you can easilly restore the
files.

--
//Aho

[Dan Purgert]

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On 2023-02-16, Blue-Maned_Hawk wrote:
> On 2/16/23 11:29, Dan Purgert wrote:
>> Discounting unity, there's like 100 MiB worth of actual config files in
>> [.config]; even if I somehow cleaned 90% of that, the freed space is
>> nothing more than rounding error.
>>
>
> Maybe it's rounding error for _your_ system, but that doesn't mean it
> is for others.

As far as I am aware; tools displaying size data round to the nearest
100M when the size is <10G (e.g. you see "9.8G" for a file / directory
that is 9.75 to 9.84G), or to the nearest 1G when the size is 10G or
more (e.g. you see "27G" for files that are 26.5 to 27.4G).

Now, the drive in this machine is "only" 250G, and I believe that seth
mentioned his $HOME resides on a 1T filesystem. So even if we ignore
that the 90MiB is lost in rounding; we're talking about freeing up
approximately 0.04% of my drive (or 0.01% of seth's). A few hundredths
of one percent of the drive's capacity really aren't worth chasing
after; especially considering there are easier ways to free up space
(like deleting that 40G of stuff I have in ~/Downloads ).

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[wimpunk]

On 2/16/23 14:29, seth hurst wrote:

Maybe you can check on the atime of the files?

find .config -type f -atime +365

I guess if you didn't used that file for a year, it's probably related
to a program you don't use anymore.