How To Reinstall Linux Mint Without Losing Your Data?

[Iacceptthelinuxchallenge]

Does anyone know how to do what the title asks? The research I've done implies using timeshift would change my settings as well. Some of the settings are causing hardware problems. I have a slow internet connecction so I am looking for a way to save everything I have downloaded/saved except the OS. Any ideas will be greatly appreciated.

 

[stan]

I think you can use Timeshift to backup just your /home/your-username/ directory and leave the OS files out. @wizardfromoz is the Timeshift guru, so he can tell you clearly.

/home/your-username/ contains many hidden files and folders, and you may want those... they have configurations of many programs, such as Firefox, Thunderbird, and others. But some of these may save program settings for the apps you're having trouble with too. Can you list the problem apps for us? Or review /home/your-username/ yourself to see if anything looks like trouble. Be sure to look in the hidden folder /home/your-username/.config too. You can save /home/your-username with a simple copy/paste and don't really need Timeshift.

 

[Alexzee]

Timeshift will do the job well.

Also, you can backup all of your files to an external hard drive as well.

Enjoy the day.

 

[KGIII]

If it works like Ubuntu, you can just reinstall by choosing 'something else' at the partitioning page and making your regular drive have the boot flag and then proceeding with the installation. That will do a clean install and attempt to retain your currently installed software while not touching your personal files.

Of course, backup everything before trying this.

 

[f33dm3bits]

Timeshift will do the job well.

Timeshift is not a backup tool for user files but for system restore, they even mention it specifically on their github page.

Timeshift for Linux is an application that provides functionality similar to the System Restore feature in Windows and the Time Machine tool in Mac OS. Timeshift protects your system by taking incremental snapshots of the file system at regular intervals. These snapshots can be restored at a later date to undo all changes to the system.
It is designed to protect only system files and settings. User files such as documents, pictures and music are excluded. This ensures that your files remains unchanged when you restore your system to an earlier date. If you need a tool to backup your documents and files please take a look at the excellent BackInTime application which is more configurable and provides options for saving user files.

An example of user file backup tool would be borbackup or rsync but there are many more.

 

[Alexzee]

I've only had to use Timeshift to restore my Linux Mint 19.3 one time. That was sometime last year.
It restored my system and I was able to use it again.