Cinnamon Profile Manager

A command-line tool for managing and switching between multiple Cinnamon desktop environment profiles. Easily save, restore, and share your Cinnamon desktop configurations.

Warning

This project is in beta. Expect bugs and incomplete features. Please report any issues you encounter!

Features

• Create profiles from your current Cinnamon settings
• Switch between profiles to quickly change your entire desktop environment
• Import/Export profiles to share configurations between computers
• Automatic backups before making changes to your settings
• Manual backups for extra safety

What Gets Backed Up?

Each profile preserves your complete Cinnamon desktop configuration, including:

• Panel layouts and settings
• Applets and their configurations
• Desktop themes and appearance settings
• Window manager settings
• Keyboard shortcuts and bindings
• Menu configurations
• Workspace settings
• Fonts
• Other Cinnamon-specific configurations

Installation

Prerequisites

The following tools are required:

• zip and unzip utilities
• dconf (usually installed with Cinnamon)

# Install prerequisites on Debian/Ubuntu-based systems such as Linux Mint
sudo apt install zip unzip dconf-cli

Install the Application

Method 1: Download pre-compiled binary

The easiest ways to install Cinnamon Profile Manager are to use the below command-line script, or by downloading the pre-compiled binary from the Releases section on GitHub.

# Download latest binary
wget https://github.com/ClaytonTDM/cinnamon-profile-manager/releases/download/v0.2.1/cinnamon-profile-manager-x86_64

# Mark it as executable
chmod +x cinnamon-profile-manager-x86_64

# Move it into a directory in your PATH (optional)
sudo mv cinnamon-profile-manager-x86_64 /usr/local/bin/cinnamon-profile-manager

Method 2: Run directly with Deno

Clone the repository and run using Deno:

# Clone the repository
git clone https://github.com/claytontdm/cinnamon-profile-manager.git
cd cinnamon-profile-manager

# Run the application
deno task start

Method 3: Install from source

# Clone the repository
git clone https://github.com/claytontdm/cinnamon-profile-manager.git
cd cinnamon-profile-manager

# Compile the application
deno task compile

# Move the compiled binary to your PATH
sudo mv cinnamon-profile-manager /usr/local/bin/

# Make it executable
sudo chmod +x /usr/local/bin/cinnamon-profile-manager

Method 4: Cross-platform binaries

You can compile the binary using this command:

deno task compile

The compiled binary will be created in the project directory.

Note: The pre-compiled binary is available in the Releases section of the GitHub repository. This is the recommended installation method for most users.

Usage

Usage: cinnamon-profile-manager [options] [command]

A tool for managing Cinnamon desktop environment profiles. Includes settings, spices, panels, etc.

Options:
  -V, --version            output the version number
  -h, --help               display help for command

Commands:
  list|ls                  List all available profiles.
  create [options] <name>  Create a new profile from current Cinnamon settings (files, dconf, themes, icons, and fonts).
  switch [options] <name>  Switch to a different profile (restores files, dconf, themes, icons, and fonts).
  delete|rm <name>         Delete an existing profile.
  backup [options]         Create a manual backup of current Cinnamon settings (files, dconf, themes, icons, and fonts).
  restore [options]        Restore Cinnamon settings from a manual backup (files, dconf, themes, icons, and fonts).
  list-backups|lb          List all available backup files (manual and automatic).
  export <name>            Export a profile to an external zip file (includes dconf settings, themes, icons, and fonts if present).
  import <filepath>        Import a profile from an external zip file (applies dconf, themes, icons, and fonts if present).
  update|up [options]      Update the currently active profile with current settings (including themes, icons, and fonts).
  reset                    DANGER: Delete all profiles, backups, and manager settings.
  help [command]           display help for command

Basic Commands

# Show help
cinnamon-profile-manager --help

# List all available profiles
cinnamon-profile-manager list

# Create a new profile from your current setup
cinnamon-profile-manager create my-awesome-profile

# Switch to a different profile
cinnamon-profile-manager switch my-awesome-profile

# Update the active profile with your current settings
cinnamon-profile-manager update

# Delete a profile
cinnamon-profile-manager delete unwanted-profile

Backup and Restore

# Create a manual backup of your current settings
cinnamon-profile-manager backup

# Restore settings from a backup
cinnamon-profile-manager restore
# (You'll be prompted to select from available backups)

Import and Export Profiles

# Export a profile to share with others
cinnamon-profile-manager export my-awesome-theme
# (Saves to ~/Downloads or ~/ by default)

# Import a profile from a zip file
cinnamon-profile-manager import ~/Downloads/cinnamon-profile-my-awesome-theme-export-2025-05-16T12-00-00-000Z.zip

Advanced Commands

# Reset all profiles and settings (BE CAREFUL!)
cinnamon-profile-manager reset

Configuration

By default, profiles are stored in ~/.cinnamon-profiles/. You can change this location by setting the CINNAMON_PROFILES_DIR environment variable:

export CINNAMON_PROFILES_DIR="/path/to/custom/directory"

Development

This project is built using Deno and TypeScript:

# Run in development mode with automatic reloading
deno task dev

# Run normally
deno task start

# Compile binary
deno task compile

Automated Builds

This project uses GitHub Actions for automated builds and releases:

• CI Build: Every push to the main branch triggers a build to ensure compilation works
• Linting & Formatting: Automatically ensures code style consistency
• Releases: When a new tag with format v* (e.g., v0.1.0) is pushed, GitHub Actions automatically:
  1. Builds binary for Linux
  2. Creates a new GitHub Release with this binary
  3. Generates release notes automatically

To create a new release:

# Tag the commit
git tag -a v0.1.0 -m "Release v0.1.0"

# Push the tag
git push origin v0.1.0

License

GPL-3.0 License

Contributing

Contributions are welcome! Please feel free to submit a Pull Request.

1. Fork the repository
2. Create your feature branch (git checkout -b feature/amazing-feature)
3. Commit your changes (git commit -m 'Add some amazing feature')
4. Push to the branch (git push origin feature/amazing-feature)
5. Open a Pull Request