However, there are times when you want to restore the newly formatted machine to the original state and you find it a chores to manually install all the applications again. This is when the backup is useful. When we say “backup” in this case, we don’t really mean backing up the actual application. What we are going to do is to export the list of all your installed app onto a text file. Next time, we can just get the system to reinstall the apps listed in the text file.
Backing up your Apps
(Optional) To list all your installed applications, open a terminal and type: To backup your list of applications to a text file: This will create a text file of the name “app-backup-list.txt” in your Home folder.
Restoring your apps
To restore your applications, first make sure that the app-backup-list.txt file is in your Home folder, then type in the terminal: Note: This will only reinstall the applications. It won’t restore back the settings that you have previously set. You might want to back up the whole Home folder to preserve all your settings. That’s it. Image credit: cesarastudillo
