Delete Flatpak Junk with Flatsweep

Flatsweep is an app that allows you to delete files that Flatpak leaves on your computer when you uninstall a flatpak app.

These files can be deleted manually via the terminal, however, if you have a lot of flatpak apps on your computer, then using an app like Flatsweep will make this process easier for you.

Instead of running the delete command anytime you want to delete these files, you can run Flatsweep and delete them via one click.

In this tutorial, we are going to show you how to install Flatsweep on Debian 12 "Bookworm" and how to clean the junk files that flatpak leaves on your computer after the removal of a flatpak app.

Install Flatsweep

Flatsweep is available on flatpak repository, so you can install it on any Linux distribution that has flatpak installed.

In this tutorial, we are using Debian 12, if you don't have flatpak installed on your system, you can check our tutorial and learn how to install it.

How to install Flatpak on Linux

To install Flatsweep, run the command below

flatpak install flathub io.github.giantpinkrobots.flatsweep

Next, confirm by pressing Y key, and then press enter to proceed installing Flatsweep

You may get the confirmation prompt more than one time, so make sure to press Y on each prompt you get on the terminal

Next, enter sudo password when asked, and press enter

Once Flatsweep has been installed on your machine, you will see the following output on your terminal

Cleanup Flatpak files with Flatsweep

Now that Flatsweep is installed on your machine, you can proceed to cleanup the unnecessary files.

First launch Flatsweep

flatpak run io.github.giantpinkrobots.flatsweep

If you prefer to use GUI instead, then you can launch Flatsweep from the applications menu.

Next, you will see the following warning window. Click to "Understood" if you are not using a custom path installation for your flatpak apps.

Next, Flatsweep will check for files that can be deleted, and it will display the size of these files in MB.

For example, we had 222 MB files that were left behind after uninstalling Discord

So, to clean those files, simply click to "Clean" button

Once these files are deleted, it should show a similar message.

When there's nothing more left to clean, Flatsweep will display the following message "No leftover data found"

Conclusion

Flatsweep helps you to delete unnecessary files that are left behind on your machine when you uninstall a flatpak app. By now you should know how to install Flatsweep, and how to make use of it.