Create List of All Installed Packages on a Debian-based System

dpkg --get-selections > pkglist.txt
apt-key exportall > repokeys.txt

Installed with snap

snap list > snaplist.txt

You now have on your system three files:

• pkglist.txt - a list of all the packages installed with the apt package manager
• repokeys.txt - a file with all the keys to all the repositories of the programs you've installed
• snaplist.txt - a file with all the packages you've installed with snap

You can save those files off somewhere safe. If you ever need to reproduce that system, you can:

Restore All Previously Installed Packages

Installed with apt

sudo dpkg --set-selections < pkglist.txt
sudo apt-get dselect-upgrade -y
sudo apt-key add repokeys.txt

Right now, I believe you'll have to reinstall snaps by hand. But at least you'll have a list! Also, this won't set your preferences, like if a shortcut is on the desktop, but all the programs you use will be there.

You can also use the snap save and snap restore to save and restore a snapshot of all the snaps on your system, but those files tend to be very large. Particularly on Ubuntu 24.04, which uses snaps much more extensively than did previous versions.

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