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I use Debian Linux in a VM.

When I create the VM, I install all of the applications/packages I use (I install them with sudo apt install), and then I copy a folder containing configuration/settings files into the VM.

For example: I have the file .config/micro/settings.json in the folder, so that I can have my preferred settings for the Micro text editor.

Is it possible to do this for Brave Browser? How do I do it?

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It is as simple as copying over the ~/.config/BraveSoftware/ directory to the new installation, e.g. with cp -a.

If you want to copy just the settings and nothing else, you need to copy ~/.config/BraveSoftware/Brave-Browser/Local\ State and ~/.config/BraveSoftware/Brave-Browser/Default/Preferences.

You could automate that as following:

#!/bin/bash

BAK_DIR="/path/of/your/brave/backup"

yay -S brave-bin       #install brave, modify to use your distros package manager
timeout 5 brave        #initial launch to create config folder structure

cp -a "$BAK_DIR/BraveSoftware/Brave-Browser/Local\ State" ~/.config/BraveSoftware/Brave-Browser/
cp -a "$BAK_DIR/BraveSoftware/Brave-Browser/Default/Preferences" ~/.config/BraveSoftware/Brave-Browser/Default
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  • I really only need to save the preferences/settings. I definitely don't need to save passwords, history, cookies, or anything else like that, although saving the Brave Rewards (BAT tokens from Brave Ads) address would be nice so I could accumulate BAT and support Brave. Is there a way I could save just the preferences without saving cookies, history, etc?
    – asdf3.14159
    Commented Oct 20, 2022 at 4:50
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    @asdf3.14159 see my recent edit. Tested with a handful different settings.
    – mashuptwice
    Commented Oct 21, 2022 at 1:51
  • Great! That looks like it will work! What's the difference between the Local State file and the Default/Preferences file? They both look like they have a lot more information that I need to save. Would it still work if I deleted all of the JSON entries for settings I don't care about (like permissions for websites, etc)?
    – asdf3.14159
    Commented Oct 21, 2022 at 2:58
  • @asdf3.14159 I don't know and this starts to go way outside the scope of your initial question. Even if you do not care about some settings, brave still needs to know what values are set to what to function properly, as it uses these files as settings database. If you want to know it to such a level of detail, you might want to look into braves source code. Before that I recommend that you evaluate how much time you want to put into preparing your browser or if in the end it might be faster to set each browser up manually. Relevant xkcd
    – mashuptwice
    Commented Oct 21, 2022 at 3:47

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