Brave is a free and open-source web browser based on Chromium. The browser is designed to provide users with increased privacy and security features, as well as to improve website performance through its ad-blocking and tracking prevention technology.
I have been using Brave Browser since 2019 and I am very satisfied with it. The website speed and performance are very good on Brave.
As I am a Linux user and try different Linux distributions more often, I need to have a backup of my files and settings to quickly up and running on a new distro. This is why I am writing this tutorial for you on how you can create a backup of your Brave Browser session. So you can restore your Brave session in no time.
I am using Ubuntu to demonstrate this tutorial. But you can do this backup process on any Linux distribution.
Video Tutorial
Where Is Brave Stored In Linux?
Brave Browser is stored in the “~/.config/BraveSoftware/” directory.
Linux filesystem structure is different than Windows. It is easy to understand and more efficient. Linux stores its application configuration files in a hidden directory called “.config“. The “.config” folder is located in the user’s home directory.
As the folder is hidden, you cannot see the folder in your file manager. Press crtl+h or Show Hidden Files from the menu of your file manager.
You will see the config folder starting with a period. Any folder starting with a period is a hidden folder in Linux.
Brave Browser is stored in the .config folder. The directory looks like this in the file manager:
/home/<user>/.config/BraveSoftware
You can also access the directory in the terminal using this:
cd ~/.config/BraveSoftware/
How Do I Backup My Brave Browser On Ubuntu?
Backing up the Brave Browser is easy. You can do this using your file manager or in the terminal. I will show you both methods in this tutorial.
Backup Brave Browser Using The File Manager
I am currently using Ubuntu’s default file manager. You can do this process on any Linux file manager. To back up your Brave Browser session, follow the steps below.
Step #1: Open up your file manager and show hidden files using ctrl+h or select “Show Hidden Files” from the hamburger menu.
Step #2: Find the folder .config and open it. Now look for the folder BraveSoftware and copy it.
Step #3: Paste the BraveSoftware folder into the directory you want.
Step #4: To protect the content of this folder, you can create a compressed archive file.
Step #5: Right-click the BraveSoftware folder and select Compress. Enter the filename brave-browser-backup, select .tar.xz as the compression file format, and click on Create.
Step #6: After that, you can delete the BraveSoftware folder.
Backup Brave Browser Using The Terminal
The GUI method is OK but I prefer the terminal method to do the backup. It is so much easier and quicker than using the file manager. To start the backup process, follow the steps below:
Step #1: Open up your terminal and use the cd command to move into the “~/.config” folder. This folder contains all the configuration files of installed applications on your Linux, including Brave. Use the following command to access the .config directory.
cd ~/.config
Step #2: You are now in the .config folder. Use the ls command to see the contents of this directory. This command will create a list of all the files and folders. Now look for the BraveSoftware folder. If the folder does not exist, run the Brave Browser to start your session.
ls
Step #3: Use the tar command to create a compressed file of the BraveSoftware folder. Wait until the process is completed. Bear in mind that the compression speed depends on your PC hardware. Use the following command to create a .tar.xz archive file.
tar -czvf brave-browser-backup.tar.xz BraveSoftware
Step #4: After completing the process, move the archive file to the home directory using the mv command.
mv brave-browser-backup.tar.xz ~/
Now go to your file manager and you will see the brave-browser-backup.tar.xz file in your home folder. Save this file wherever you want to save it.
Restore Your Brave Browser Backup
You can restore your Brave backup in both ways: File Manager and Terminal. I am going to show both methods right now.
Restore Brave Browser Backup Using The File Manager
To restore your Brave Browser backup, I am going to use the Ubuntu file manager. To restore your Brave Browser backup, follow the steps below.
Step #1: Open up your file manager and extract the archive file. A new folder will appear called brave-browser-backup. Open this folder and you will find the BraveSoftware folder. Select the folder and copy it using ctrl+c or from the right-click menu.
Step #2: Show the hidden files using ctrl+h or select “Show Hidden Files” from the hamburger menu.
Step #3: Find the folder .config and open it. Now look for the folder BraveSoftware.
Step #4: Rename the BraveSoftware folder to BraveSoftware-old. If this folder does not exist, you can skip this step. Make sure the Brave Browser is installed.
Step #5: Now paste the BraveSoftware folder into the .config folder.
Step #6: Open Brave Browser and your session should be restored. If everything looks ok, delete the BraveSoftware-old that we renamed earlier.
Restore Brave Browser Backup Using The Terminal
Using the terminal is much easier than using the file manager. To restore your Brave Browser session, follow the steps below.
Step #1: Open up your terminal and copy the brave-browser-backup.tar.xz archive file to the .config folder using the following command. Note that I placed my backup file in the home directory. If you saved your file in another location, replace it according to yours.
cp brave-browser-backup.tar.xz .config
Step #2: Move into the “~/.config” folder using the following command.
cd ~/.config
Step #3: Use the ls command to see if the BraveSoftware folder exists or not.
ls
Step #4: If the BraveSoftware folder exists, use the following command to rename it. Otherwise, you can skip this step.
mv BraveSoftware BraveSoftware-old
Step #5: Now extract the brave-browser-backup.tar.gz archive file using the command below.
tar -xzvf brave-browser-backup.tar.xz
Step #6: Wait for the extraction to be completed. After that, your Brave Browser session is restored. Now you can remove the backup file from the .config folder if you want using the rm command.
rm brave-browser-backup.tar.xz
Encrypting The Brave Browser Backup Using GPG
Encrypting your Brave Browser backup is not necessary unless you have security reasons. You can encrypt your backup file easily using GPG.
The GPG tool, also known as GNU Privacy Guard, is a security tool for Linux that enables file encryption.
To encrypt your backup file, follow the steps below.
Step #1: Copy the brave-browser-backup.tar.xz archive file in your home directory using your file manager.
Step #2: Open up a terminal window and use the following command.
gpg -c brave-browser-backup.tar.xz
Step #3: It will ask you to enter your encryption password. Confirm your password and the encryption process will start.
After encrypting your backup file, you can delete your non-encrypted backup file if you want.
Decrypting The Brave Browser Backup Using GPG
You cannot use the encrypted backup file without decrypting it first. To decrypt your backup file, follow the steps below.
Step #1: Copy the brave-browser-backup.tar.xz.gpg encrypted file in your home directory.
Step #2: Open up a terminal window and use the following command.
gpg -d brave-browser-backup.tar.xz.gpg > brave-browser-backup.tar.xz
Step #3: It will ask you to enter your encryption password. Confirm your password and the decryption process will start.
After that, you will see the brave-browser-backup.tar.xz archive file in your home directory. You can now use this archive to restore your Brave Browser session.
Conclusion
In this tutorial, we have learned where the Brave Browser is stored in Linux, how you can easily create a backup of your Brave Browser session and restore it properly, and how you can encrypt and decrypt your backup file when needed.
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