⚠️ This project is under active development. Bug reports, feature requests, and pull requests are very welcome and greatly appreciated! Feel free to open an issue or submit a PR.

🐚 Prefer the command line? Check out GNOME Config Exporter (CLI) — a standalone Bash script with the same functionality, no dependencies beyond dconf and rsync.

Features

• Full GNOME backup — dconf database, extensions, themes, icons, fonts, wallpapers, GTK 3/4 settings, autostart, terminal profiles, monitor config, Nautilus scripts, default apps, online accounts, keyrings, desktop files, XDG user dirs
• Selective backup & restore — choose exactly which categories to include
• Timeshift-inspired GUI — clean, familiar desktop interface
• CLI mode — --backup, --list, --help, --version for scripting and automation
• Scheduled backups — hourly, daily, weekly, monthly via systemd user timers
• Backup comparison — diff two backups to see what changed
• Safety backup — automatic pre-restore safety snapshot of your current config
• Version & user mismatch warnings — alerts you before restoring across different GNOME versions or users
• Fast startup — backup metadata is cached for instant loading
• Multi-distro support — Arch, Fedora, Ubuntu, Debian, openSUSE, Void, Gentoo, NixOS

Compatibility

Fully compatible with the original bash script version. Backups created with the bash script are recognized and can be restored by this Go app, and vice versa. Both use the same directory structure, naming format (YYYYMMDD_HHMMSS), and metadata layout.

Install

Download from Releases (recommended)

1. Go to the Releases page
2. Download the latest gnome-cfg-exporter binary for your architecture
3. Make it executable and run:

chmod +x gnome-cfg-exporter
./gnome-cfg-exporter

Optionally, move it to your PATH:

sudo mv gnome-cfg-exporter /usr/local/bin/

Build from Source

Requirements: Go 1.21+, Node.js 18+, npm, Wails CLI v2

# Install Wails CLI
go install github.com/wailsapp/wails/v2/cmd/wails@latest

# Clone and build
git clone https://github.com/KallosLaszlo/gnome-config-backup-GUI.git
cd gnome-cfg-exporter
wails build

The binary will be at build/bin/gnome-cfg-exporter.

Usage

GUI

gnome-cfg-exporter

CLI

gnome-cfg-exporter --backup      # Full backup
gnome-cfg-exporter --list        # List all backups
gnome-cfg-exporter --version     # Show version
gnome-cfg-exporter --help        # Show help

Configuration

Config file: ~/.config/gnome-cfg-exporter/config.json

Backups are stored in: ~/.local/share/gnome-cfg-exporter/ (configurable in Settings)

Dependencies

Screenshots

Coming soon

Contributing

This project is under active development. Contributions are welcome!

1. Fork the repository
2. Create your feature branch (git checkout -b feature/my-feature)
3. Commit your changes (git commit -am 'Add my feature')
4. Push to the branch (git push origin feature/my-feature)
5. Open a Pull Request

License

This project is licensed under the MIT License — see the LICENSE file for details.

Author

Kallos Laszlo — GitHub · Ko-fi