Arch Linux
snapd package

  1. Bug #1575053
  2. Comment #26

Comment 26 for bug 1575053

Revision history for this message
Oliver Grawert (ogra) wrote : Re: Please move snap user data from "$HOME/snap" to "$HOME/.snap" (or to "$HOME/.local/share/snap" in accordance with the XDG spec)

I'd like to note again that ~/snap is not just simply a configuration dir as some people here seem to think (else it would probably have been dot prefixed from the start), but ~/snap/<packagename> is the default dir where your snap stores data that you want to be user accessible, might put additional binaries, scripts etc you want to execute...

it is way more than a configuration dir, it is the fallback homedir for the snap if it does not use any interfaces, it is the place where downloads can end up without having to use any interfaces and last but not least it is the default workdir that user started snap applications run in (vs $HOME which a non snapped app without security confinement would use, with access to all your sensible data)...

all these bits will be completely hidden once that dir moves and we will have to explain to users that the output of that cli command they just used can only be found if they turn on hidden files in their file browser... or that the download they just did with that gui program ended up in a hidden space ...

while it might seem trivial to some to just move the dir name, there is a lot of conceptual work to be re-done and re-thought to not lose in security and usability when hiding it ...
(along with the fact that you can always roll back to any former snap or snapd version and due to the fully transactional nature of snaps this needs to be fully backwards compatible as zyga mentioned above)

...so please be patient ;)