How to Clean Up Flatpak Apps and Reclaim Disk Space

Learn how to clean up Flatpak apps and reclaim disk space on your Linux system by identifying and managing Flatpak installation directories and package sizes.

Introduction

Flatpak, a popular package management system, provides a sandboxed environment for running applications. However, this sandboxed nature can result in the accumulation of significant disk space over time. In this guide, we will walk you through the process of cleaning up Flatpak apps to free up precious disk space on your Linux system.

Where Flatpak Packages are Installed

When you install a Flatpak package, it is stored in two primary locations on your system:

1. System Installation Directory: `/var/lib/flatpak



This directory contains all the files, metadata, application files, and runtime files shared among all Flatpak apps.

2\. User Installation Directory: ~/.local/share/flatpak\


Flatpak data specific to each user, including installed applications, is stored in this directory.

How to Find Out the Size of Flatpak Apps

Before proceeding with cleanup, it's helpful to identify the disk space occupied by Flatpak apps. Here are some commands you can use:

1. Check the size of /var/lib/flatpak

`bash


du -h /var/lib/flatpak



2\. Use Disk Usage Analyzer\
Alternatively, you can visually inspect the size of Flatpak data by using a disk usage analyzer tool.

3\. List installed Flatpak packages

  by name and size

`bash


flatpak --columns=name,size list



  by app, name and size

`bash


flatpak --columns=app,name,size,installation list



Output is like this:

`bash


Application ID                                  Name                            Installed size           Installation\
io.podman_desktop.PodmanDesktop                 Podman Desktop                  306.5 MB       system\
org.fedoraproject.Platform                      Fedora Platform                   1.8 GB       system\
org.fedoraproject.Platform                      Fedora Platform                   1.9 GB       system\
org.fedoraproject.Platform                      Fedora Platform                   2.0 GB       system\
org.fedoraproject.Platform                      Fedora Platform                   2.0 GB       system\
org.freedesktop.Platform                        Freedesktop Platform            576.2 MB       system\
org.freedesktop.Platform.GL.default             Mesa                            385.2 MB       system\
org.freedesktop.Platform.GL.default             Mesa (Extra)                    385.2 MB       system\
org.freedesktop.Platform.VAAPI.Intel            Intel                            53.3 MB       system\
org.freedesktop.Platform.openh264               openh264                        790.0 kB       system\
org.geany.Geany                                 Geany



  by name and size per user

`bash


flatpak --columns=name,size --user list



Commands to Clean Up Flatpak Apps

Now, let's proceed with cleaning up Flatpak apps to reclaim disk space:

  Uninstall Unused Flatpak Packages:

`bash


flatpak uninstall --unused

This command safely removes Flatpak packages that are no longer in use.