feat: allow customizing browser data location #33554

zcbenz · 2022-03-31T10:37:02Z

Description of Change

This PR adds a new sessionData path to app.setPath, which allows changing the location where browser data like cookies and disk cache are stored.

This is very useful for apps that do not store user information in browser, as they treat browser data as cache and want to store them in cache locations, see also #1404 and #8124.

Before this PR apps can achieve similar effect by changing the path of userData, but we should separate sessionData from userData, as apps may want to store user information in userData while storing browser data in cache location.

This PR is modified from #30665.

Checklist

PR description included and stakeholders cc'd
npm test passes
tests are changed or added
relevant documentation is changed or added
PR release notes describe the change in a way relevant to app developers, and are capitalized, punctuated, and past tense.

Release Notes

Notes: Add browserData to app.setPath/getPath.

shell/app/electron_main_delegate.cc

shell/browser/browser.cc

docs/api/app.md

zcbenz · 2022-04-27T11:06:34Z

I have renamed browserData to sessionData, and added tests to verify the locations of service worker, localStorage, etc. are the in the right location.

docs/api/app.md

nornagon · 2022-04-28T18:36:40Z

API LGTM

jkleinsc

API LGTM

nornagon · 2022-05-02T15:11:40Z

docs/api/app.md

+    it is not recommended to write large files here because some environments
+    may backup this directory to cloud storage.


Does Chromium have this problem? I would be surprised if Chrome's caches are uploaded to cloud storage on any platform...

Chrome stores all data under %LOCALAPPDATA%/Google/Chrome, unlike Electron apps it writes nothing to %APPDATA%.

Also Chrome writes browsing data (i.e. sessionData) to a subdirectory (%LOCALAPPDATA%/Google/Chrome/User Data/Default) instead of the root %LOCALAPPDATA%/Google/Chrome, which is also different from Electron where we mix browsing data and other types of data under the same directory.

We really made some mistakes when choosing where to store data in Electron.

I'm going to expose a few more paths in app.getPath and write a guide on how to setup the directories to correct locations after this PR.

Hang on—so Chrome can choose the session data directory per-profile, then! Chromium will put things under userData/Profile 1, userData/Profile 2 and so on. Shouldn't we offer the same capability?

We do the same thing in Electron, sessions created by session.fromPartition write data to $sessionData/Partitions/$partitionName subdirectory instead of the root directory.

The difference is Electron writes data of the default session into the root $sessionData directory, while Chrome browser writes into the User Data/Default subdirectory.

Hm, Chrome writes to User Data/$partitionName, right? Default is a name of a partition.

Yes, Chrome treats the default profile the same with other profiles and writes data to User Data/$name.

Electron treats the default session specially and writes its data to $sessionData, the data of other sessions are written into $sessionData/Partitions/$partitionName instead.

This was because we did not consider the support of multiple sessions in the early days of Electron.

ahhhh, right, got it. Thanks, that makes sense!

zcbenz · 2022-05-05T00:29:30Z

@nornagon This PR is still marked as requesting changes from you, can you take another look?

nornagon · 2022-05-05T02:09:22Z

docs/api/app.md

+    state, devtools files. By default this points to `userData`. Chromium may
+    write very large disk cache here, so if your app does not rely on browser
+    storage like localStorage or cookies to save user data, it is recommended
+    to set this directory to other locations to avoid polluting the `userData`


other locations

I think it would be a good idea to recommend a particular location here!

It is hard to recommend a particular location here within a short paragraph, I would like to introduce a new path that users can easily use in their app app.setPath('sessionData', app.getPath('betterLocation'), with a guide on where apps should store their data. But I would like to do it in a new pull request, since it is going to be a bunch of new changes that need new reviews.

jkleinsc · 2022-05-09T14:26:53Z

Merging as API review has been approved but is still showing as pending for some reason.

release-clerk · 2022-05-09T14:27:01Z

Release Notes Persisted

Add browserData to app.setPath/getPath.

* feat: redirect Electron/Chromium cache location * fix: network services should also use browserData * test: browserData * chore: no need to explicitly create dir * feat: browserData => sessionData * test: check existings of specific items * docs: add background on userData and sessionData Co-authored-by: emmanuel.kimmerlin@thomsonreuters.com <emmanuel.kimmerlin@thomsonreuters.com>

zcbenz added semver/minor backwards-compatible functionality api-review/requested 🗳 no-backport labels Mar 31, 2022

electron-cation bot added the new-pr 🌱 PR opened in the last 24 hours label Mar 31, 2022

zcbenz mentioned this pull request Mar 31, 2022

feat: Redirect Electron/Chromium cache location #30665

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miniak approved these changes Apr 3, 2022

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electron-cation bot removed the new-pr 🌱 PR opened in the last 24 hours label Apr 7, 2022

nornagon requested changes Apr 11, 2022

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zcbenz force-pushed the browser-data branch 5 times, most recently from 1dc0439 to 585ef03 Compare April 14, 2022 10:20

jkleinsc self-assigned this Apr 18, 2022

zcbenz force-pushed the browser-data branch from 585ef03 to 4753132 Compare April 27, 2022 10:02

nornagon reviewed Apr 28, 2022

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emmanuel.kimmerlin@thomsonreuters.com and others added 7 commits May 2, 2022 10:11

feat: redirect Electron/Chromium cache location

e00a83d

fix: network services should also use browserData

6eaaff3

test: browserData

6e03876

chore: no need to explicitly create dir

cc18981

feat: browserData => sessionData

a4a5282

test: check existings of specific items

89ceed4

docs: add background on userData and sessionData

56ade71

zcbenz force-pushed the browser-data branch from 4753132 to 56ade71 Compare May 2, 2022 01:11

jkleinsc reviewed May 2, 2022

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nornagon reviewed May 2, 2022

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nornagon reviewed May 5, 2022

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nornagon approved these changes May 5, 2022

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jkleinsc merged commit 9483e71 into main May 9, 2022

jkleinsc deleted the browser-data branch May 9, 2022 14:26

DC7IA mentioned this pull request May 9, 2022

wrong cache path element-hq/element-desktop#718

Open

baj0k mentioned this pull request May 9, 2022

Cache location of Linux client does not comply with XDG Base Directory Specification signalapp/Signal-Desktop#4975

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1 task

commit-lint bot mentioned this pull request Jul 13, 2022

[pull] main from electron:main Blaquez-home/electron#3

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Zocker1999NET mentioned this pull request Apr 29, 2023

(Feature request) Fully adhere to the XDG Base Directory Specification zadam/trilium#3885

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feat: allow customizing browser data location #33554

feat: allow customizing browser data location #33554

zcbenz commented Mar 31, 2022 •

edited

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jkleinsc commented May 9, 2022

release-clerk bot commented May 9, 2022

		it is not recommended to write large files here because some environments
		may backup this directory to cloud storage.

feat: allow customizing browser data location #33554

feat: allow customizing browser data location #33554

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zcbenz commented Mar 31, 2022 • edited

Description of Change

Checklist

Release Notes

zcbenz commented Apr 27, 2022

nornagon commented Apr 28, 2022

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zcbenz May 4, 2022 • edited

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jkleinsc commented May 9, 2022

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zcbenz commented Mar 31, 2022 •

edited

zcbenz May 4, 2022 •

edited