Where are my profiles stored on Linux if not in ".config"?

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I’m trying to back up my browser data before I reinstall the OS, but my issue (unrelated to Brave) prevents any browsers from opening. I’ve been told that Brave hosts user data in ~/.config/BraveSoftware, but I can’t find any such folder. If not there, then where could the data be stored?
Thanks.

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I’m not familiar with Linux so went to research. What I’m going to do for the moment is share some replies from various AI and suggest you check those. Otherwise will hope to get Mattches in to help you in a bit.

Regardless, I do want to make sure you’re aware that even if you copy the location, you will not have access to any of your passwords that are done through the backup you’re intending. This is because the passwords are encrypted using your OS keychain. When you go to reinstall the OS that it is essentially a reformat and you will be creating a new OS keychain. If so, it will lose its encryption key.

Have you looked for any other possible locations in .config? For example, I asked Leo out of curiosity and the answer given was:

On Linux, it may be located in ~/.config/brave or ~/.config/BraveBrowser rather than ~/.config/BraveSoftware. You can also try searching for folders named “Default” or containing long random strings of characters. Additionally, some profile data may be stored in the application support or library folders within your home directory.

Then I went to Bard and it says:

  • ~/.config/BraveSoftware: This is the default location for Brave data on Linux systems. However, it’s possible that your system is configured differently, or that Brave is using a different profile location.
  • ~/.local/share/brave/Brave-browser: This is another possible location for Brave data on some Linux distributions.

Bing wasn’t helpful really, but the final bit it says might help:

  • Linux: ~/.config/BraveSoftware/

If you’re unable to locate the folder on your system, you can try searching for it using the %appdata% command in the find command in Linux

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Hello @mikwee

the data should be at /home/<username>/.config/BraveSoftware

if that did not help then may i ask what is your linux distro and how you installed brave

hope that help and have a nice day :slight_smile:

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I’m on Fedora, and Brave was installed through Flatpak. And when I wrote that, I finally figured it out: Of course it’s not gonna be there - it’s in a sandbox!

So indeed, I did find the directory ~/.var/app/com.brave.Browser. Inside that directory, and it includes the directories cache, config and data. Is this the right one?

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  1. flatbak package is not official so i would recommend to use
  1. to give you broader way this where the data based on how you installed the app per user or per system

notice some data can not be moved for example password as it saved encrypted so you need to export it

i think you would loose the unclaimed BAT but not sure

so i would recommend to use the export feature for each thing you want to keep like bookmark / password and so on

hope that help and have a nice day :slight_smile:

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I don’t save passwords in my browser and don’t use Brave Rewards, so that’s fine by me.

That’s what I would do on normal days, but you can’t export data without opening the browser.

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sure

by the way if you interested in certain data to get you can search it’s location in chrome using any search engine and you will fine it the same brave of course with little modification of the path but once you inside the profile folder then follow the rest of the path from the chrome part

and have a nice day :slight_smile:

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