App Manager

Think Windows "Installed apps", for Linux. Flatpaks, Snaps, Homebrew, AppImages, Steam games, containers and your distro's own packages all show up in one searchable window. Works on any distro: Fedora (including Bazzite, Silverblue and Kinoite), Ubuntu, Debian, Arch, openSUSE and their relatives.

Quick start

git clone https://github.com/Haloman363/app-manager.git
cd app-manager
./install-desktop.sh     # adds "App Manager" to your application menu
./appmanager.py          # or just run it right now

There is nothing to build and nothing to pip install. It needs Python 3, GTK 4, libadwaita 1.5+ and PyGObject. If something is missing, App Manager tells you the command for your distro:

Distro	Install the dependencies
Fedora (all variants)	sudo dnf install python3-gobject gobject-introspection gtk4 libadwaita (already installed on KDE and GNOME)
Ubuntu 24.04+, Debian 13+	sudo apt install python3-gi gir1.2-gtk-4.0 gir1.2-adw-1
Arch, Manjaro	sudo pacman -S python-gobject gtk4 libadwaita
openSUSE	sudo zypper install python3-gobject typelib-1_0-Gtk-4_0 typelib-1_0-Adw-1

Debian 12 and Ubuntu 22.04 ship a libadwaita that is too old.

How to use it

1. Find an app. Type anywhere to search, or pick a source from the first dropdown.
2. Tick the checkbox next to each app you want gone.
3. Press Remove. A dialog shows the exact commands before anything runs. Confirm, done.

Other things you can do:

I want to...	Do this
See details or copy the remove command	Click the ⓘ button on a row
Update one app	Click the blue Update button on its row
Update everything	☰ menu → Update all
Update apps automatically	☰ menu → Update apps automatically (daily)
Free space	☰ menu → Remove unused Flatpak runtimes or Clean Homebrew cache
Sort by size	Use the second dropdown (Name / Size / Source)
Tick everything shown	Click the select-all button, or press Ctrl+A
Reload the list	Click ⟳, or press F5

Shortcut	Action
Just start typing	Search
Ctrl+F	Focus the search box
F5 / Ctrl+R	Refresh
Ctrl+A	Select all shown (never System apps)
Delete	Remove the ticked apps (asks first)

What it finds

Source	Where it looks	Remove does
Flatpak	flatpak list	flatpak uninstall, with an optional "also delete app data" box
Snap	snap list (runtimes and bases hidden)	snap remove (asks for your password)
Homebrew	brew leaves (what you installed, not dependencies)	brew uninstall
rpm-ostree	packages you layered (Bazzite, Silverblue, Kinoite)	rpm-ostree uninstall (needs a reboot)
Distrobox	distrobox list	distrobox rm -f
Toolbox	Toolbx containers	toolbox rm -f
AppImage	*.AppImage files in common folders, plus apps with a menu launcher	Moves the file and its launcher to the trash
Steam	Steam shortcuts in your app menu	Opens Steam's own uninstall prompt
Local	Menu entries you added by hand (manual installs, web apps)	Moves the entry and its ~/.local/opt folder or ~/.local/bin script to the trash
System	Your distro's own apps, found through the menu entries and the package that owns each one	See below

How System apps are removed depends on the distro, and it is detected automatically:

Distro family	Command
Fedora Atomic (Bazzite, Silverblue, Kinoite)	rpm-ostree override remove (reboot, undo with override reset)
Fedora, RHEL and clones	pkexec dnf remove -y
Debian, Ubuntu, Mint	pkexec apt-get remove -y
Arch, Manjaro	pkexec pacman -R --noconfirm
openSUSE	pkexec zypper --non-interactive remove

pkexec shows your system's normal admin password prompt. Sources whose tools are not installed (no brew, no snap, no distrobox) are skipped quietly.

Updates

• One app: click Update on its row. Works for Flatpak, Homebrew, Snap and AppImage apps.
• Everything: ☰ menu → Update all.
• Automatically: flip Update apps automatically (daily) in the ☰ menu. This installs a systemd user timer (app-manager-update.timer) that runs ./appmanager.py --update-all once a day with a random delay. It updates Flatpak, Homebrew and AppImage apps and shows a desktop notification when it did something. Snap and your distro's packages need admin rights, so they stay with their own updaters (snapd already refreshes itself). Turn the switch off to remove the timer. Logs: journalctl --user -u app-manager-update.
• AppImage updates need appimageupdatetool on your PATH. Without it, AppImages are simply not checked.
• App Manager itself: a banner appears when a newer release exists. For a git checkout, Update runs git pull --ff-only; otherwise it opens the release page. Restart the app afterwards. The only network request is one anonymous call to the GitHub releases API at startup; set APPMANAGER_NO_UPDATE_CHECK=1 to turn it off.

Safety

• Nothing runs until you confirm, and the dialog lists the exact commands.
• AppImage and Local removals go to the trash, so you can get them back.
• Leftovers are opt-in. If config or data folders named like the app exist (in ~/.config, ~/.local/share or ~/.cache), the dialog lists them and a checkbox moves them to the trash. Nothing else is touched.
• System apps are marked with an amber "System" label and a warning in the dialog.
• Select-all never picks System apps. Native packages must be ticked by hand.
• Core packages are locked: desktop shells (Plasma, GNOME, Xfce, Cinnamon, MATE, Budgie), display managers, systemd, NetworkManager, polkit and the package managers themselves cannot be removed from here.
• Other native packages (a file manager, a terminal) can be removed. Read the warning first.

FAQ

Why can't I tick some apps? They are locked: either no package owns that menu entry, or it belongs to a protected core package. Click ⓘ to see which.

Why do I see fewer Homebrew apps than brew list? Only the formulae you installed directly are listed. Dependencies are hidden so you can't break other tools by accident.

Where did a removed AppImage go? Your trash. Restore it from your file manager.

It says "N updates" but a row has no Update button. Update badges only appear on rows that exist in the list, and only for sources that can be updated from here.

Can I script it? ./appmanager.py --list prints every app and its remove command as tab-separated text, without opening a window. ./appmanager.py --update-all runs the headless update. ./appmanager.py --version prints the version.

Limits

• No update check for Steam apps; Snap and native package updates are left to their updaters.
• Removing an app does not hunt down every leftover; only folders named like the app are offered.
• System package removal asks your package manager to remove dependants too (that is how apt remove, dnf remove and pacman -R work). The core-package lock covers the dangerous cases, but read the dialog.

For developers

It is a single file, appmanager.py. Each source is a small generator function that yields App records (name, source, version, size, the command that removes it). The window just lists them.

python3 -m unittest discover -s tests -v   # parsing and safety tests, no display needed
./appmanager.py --demo                     # fake sample apps, never runs a command
./appmanager.py --shot out.png [seconds]   # save a screenshot of the window and quit

CI runs the tests on Ubuntu, Fedora and Arch.

License

MIT. Do whatever you like with it.