How to transfer / transfer an Atom installation (packages and settings) from one Mac to another?

Question

Can I copy Atom from one Mac to another, including all installed packages, settings, etc.?

Answer 1

There are several ways to synchronize settings and packages between Atom installations:

• Git: Create a public or private Git repository and save the contents of the local ~/.atom folder. Ignore the following files / directories in the .gitignore file:

   storage compile-cache dev .npm .node-gyp 

• Use a package like sync-settings . This will save your configuration to the GitHub Gist.

• Dropbox (or similar): move your ~/.atom folder to the Dropbox folder and then link it from there to its original location. This has the disadvantage of synchronizing everything in ~/.atom , even those things that you could ignore.

• Use the stars to select your favorite packages. Create an account on the Atom website and tag your favorite packages with asterisks. Then use apm stars --install to install all the marked packages on any computer. Downside: this only works for packages, not settings.

More details:

• https://discuss.atom.io/t/syncing-settings-packages-between-machines/1385

Answer 2

As a user who uses a dotfile management system such as RCM , I prefer independent configuration files.

Atom currently does not officially provide the packages.cson file for managing plugins, but as the post Sync settings and packages between machines mentioned, there is a plugin called package-sync that will generate the packages.cson file for us.

So, with package-sync, now I can just sync these mini configuration files so that my Atom settings and packages are consistent across multiple machines.

Here's how to do it (use ubuntu as an example):

• Install Atom and install package-sync via Edit → Preferences → Install as the screen shows:

• Open the control panel and type: Create Package List and ~/.atom will be packages.cson in the ~/.atom folder.

• Edit the gitignore file:

  $ gedit ~ / .atom / .gitignore

  Make sure the content:

  blob-store compile-cache dev storage .node-gyp .npm .apm packages/ atom-shell/

  This is a screenshot of the .gitignore file:

  This ensures that content downloaded by Atom from the Internet is not synchronized with your dotfiles replica.

• Move the .atom folder to the .atom repository:

  $ mv ~ / .atom ~ / dotfiles / tag-atom / atom

• Restart the folder:

  $ ln -s ~ / dotfiles / tag-atom / atom ~ / .atom

  Or if you have rcm installed:

  $ rcup

• Now go to another machine and install Atom and batch synchronization. Update the dotfiles repository and then open the Atom control panel and type: sync

Now your Atom settings will be synchronized and integrated with the dotilfe RCM control system.

These are the files in my ~/.atom that are syncing:

Answer 3

I recently created a package that automatically synchronizes your Atom settings and packages on multiple computers. A bit like bookmark sync mechanism in Google Chrome. It is called atom-package-sync . Perhaps this may suit your needs.

Answer 4

The .atom folder contains the package folder, which can be quite large. Unfortunately, OneDrive does not allow you to exclude folders, so I went with the git option.

I excluded packages from git, and instead I transferred a text file containing my packages ( my-packages.txt ).

To reinstall the packages I need to run: apm install --packages-file my-packages.txt .

To generate my-packages.txt , I need something like this in the Bash shell: ls packages | xargs -n 1 echo | cut -d/ -f1 > my-packages.txt ls packages | xargs -n 1 echo | cut -d/ -f1 > my-packages.txt