How to share/transfer an Atom installation (packages and settings) from one Mac to another?

Question

Is it possible to copy Atom from one Mac to another, including all installed packages, settings etc?

Answer 1

There are several ways to synchronize your settings and packages between Atom installations:

• Git: Create a public or private Git repo and store the contents of your local ~/.atom folder in there. Ignore the following files/directories in a .gitignore file:

  storage
  compile-cache
  dev
  .npm
  .node-gyp
  

• Use a package like sync-settings. This will store your configuration in a GitHub Gist.

• Dropbox (or similar): Move your ~/.atom folder to your Dropbox folder and then symlink it from there to its original location. This has the downside of syncing everything in ~/.atom, even the things you could ignore.

• Use stars to select your favorite packages. On the Atom web site, create an account and mark your favorite packages with stars. Then use apm stars --install to install all starred packages on any machine. Downside: This only works for packages, not for settings.

More details:

• https://discuss.atom.io/t/syncing-settings-packages-between-machines/1385