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I used to have a netbook which has since been upgraded.

I was good at backups and have various types (Duplicity/.home dir/single config files saved as exports).

I have set up and been using Ubuntu on a new machine for a while and realised I don't have some of the old info in all of my apps (specifically Filezilla/Firefox/Nautilus/Tomboy etc)

Is there any way to import the config/settings files from my backups to the new machine so I have both the old stuff and the new stuff all on the new machine?

Is it possible to consolidate my data in this way?

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You can use any file synchronization program or backup manager to restore old configuration folders/files and merge, add, or replace the new ones.

With FreeFileSync :

1 - Install FreeFileSync :

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:freefilesync/ffs
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install freefilesync

2- backup current configuration :

sudo cp ~/.config/ ~/.config-backup/

2 - connect and mount your external backup drive.

3 - Run freefilesync and compare /media/YOUR_BACKUP_DRIVE/home/USER/.config/ with actual installation ~/.config/ folder. You should probably NOT do that on the full ~/.config/ folder, but only on specific subfolders you need, one by one, for example :

backup/../.config/nautilus vs /home/.../.config/nautilus

4 - Configure custom synchronization settings (green gears, top right of ffs window) and exclude folders or files you do not want to restore.

5 - When you're sure about what you've done, double check which files will be deleted or updated.

6 - synchronize, reboot, and test your system. Restore from ./config-backup/ (step 2) if anything went wrong.

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