Snap¶

ID: snap
Links: Home page · Documentation · Repository · Wikipedia
Upstream stars: ⭐ 2,054
Last commit: 2026-09-29
Version requirement: >= 2
Platforms: 🅱️ BSD · 🐧 Linux · ⨂ Unix
Operations: installed · outdated · search · install · upgrade · upgrade_all · remove
purl types: pkg:snap/
CLI name: snap
Every call: snap <command> --color=never
Issues and PRs: 📦 manager: snap
Source: snap.py

Canonical’s snap installs sandboxed, self-updating packages.

snaps refresh themselves on a schedule, so upgrade merely forces a snap refresh sooner. Mutating operations escalate through sudo by default: the privileged work happens in the snapd daemon, but the daemon refuses state changes from an unprivileged client (snap install as a plain user is denied with a hint to retry with sudo), which is why the Snap store documents sudo snap install as the canonical invocation. A host authenticated against the store with snap login (or granted a polkit rule) can drop the wrap with --no-sudo or a [mpm.overrides.snap] sudo = false override.

What `mpm` adds to `snap`¶

Through mpm, snap gains --exact and --extended search, to narrow to exact names or match descriptions.

Bigger still, mpm reaches across every manager at once: mpm installed and mpm outdated cover snap alongside every other manager you run in one table, mpm upgrade --all updates them together, and mpm sbom exports the whole machine as one bill of materials.

Every mpm command also gains --dry-run and --plan previews, cross-scheme version comparison and purl identifiers. See manager augmentations for how each one is built.

Your `snap` commands, in `mpm`¶

You already know snap: each operation maps one-to-one onto mpm, in an interface shared by every manager.

To…	With `snap`	With `mpm`
List what’s installed	`snap list`	`mpm --snap installed`
List outdated packages	`snap refresh --list`	`mpm --snap outdated`
Search for a package	`snap find doc`	`mpm --snap search doc`
Install a package	`sudo snap install standard-notes`	`mpm install pkg:snap/standard-notes`
Upgrade one package	`sudo snap refresh standard-notes`	`mpm --snap upgrade standard-notes`
Upgrade everything	`sudo snap refresh`	`mpm --snap upgrade --all`
Remove a package	`sudo snap remove standard-notes`	`mpm remove pkg:snap/standard-notes`

Prefix any command above with --dry-run to simulate the underlying manager calls without touching the system: the safe way to watch what mpm would do before trusting it.

Operations¶

Operation	Supported	Notes
`installed`	✅
`outdated`	✅	The `refresh --list` output reports only the available version, so each installed version is looked up separately.
`orphans`
`search`	✅	The `snap find` command matches summaries as well as names, so `mpm` refilters the results. Exact and extended search backfilled by `mpm`.
`install`	✅
`upgrade`	✅
`upgrade_all`	✅
`remove`	✅
`sync`
`cleanup`
`doctor`

Configuration¶

Ignore snap on the mpm CLI by passing the --no-snap option.
Ignore it for every run in your configuration:
```
[mpm]
snap = false
```
Raise the timeout of all snap calls:
```
[mpm.overrides.snap]
timeout = 900
```

Run mpm config-template snap to print all overridable settings for your configuration file:

[mpm.overrides.snap]
cli_names = [
    "snap",
]
cli_search_path = []
dry_run = false
ignore_auto_updates = true
plan = false
post_args = [
    "--color=never",
]
pre_args = []
pre_cmds = []
requirement = ">=2.0.0"
stop_on_error = false
unmaintained = false
version_cli_options = [
    "--version",
]
version_regexes = [
    "snap\\s+(?P<version>\\S+)",
]

The arguments and environment variables listed in the box atop this page are forced on every snap call, so runs stay quiet, non-interactive and reproducible: the defaults you would set in CI anyway.

Recipes¶

A few jobs you would otherwise script around snap, one mpm command each:

Snapshot and clone a machine: mpm --snap dump snap.toml, then mpm restore snap.toml on the next one.
Export a compliance SBOM: mpm --snap sbom (CycloneDX by default, --spdx for SPDX).

Privilege escalation¶

System-wide manager: mpm wraps its privileged operations in sudo out of the box. Instead of letting the tool prompt mid-run, mpm primes the credential cache up-front, with a single branded password prompt at most. Turn escalation off for rootless setups with --no-sudo or the per-manager sudo override.

Its privileged operations are install, remove, upgrade, upgrade_all.

See privilege escalation for the full policy.

Cooldown¶

State of Snap’s release-age gating, from the cooldown support table:

Status: ➖ N/A (risk channels stable/candidate/beta/edge, plus snap refresh --hold up to 90 days)
Mechanism: snap refresh --hold
Reference: Snap docs

A cooldown only pays off where a compromised release can be withdrawn while the clock runs, and can only be emulated where the registry dates its releases. From the retraction table:

Registry: Snap Store
Retraction: Index revert on the channel pointer: “Promoting and demoting revisions is also a useful progression […] for when a snap needs to revert to an older version as a response to a security concern” (release management)

With --cooldown set, mpm skips this manager’s install and upgrade operations rather than run them unguarded (fail-closed); --cooldown best-effort opts back in.

Reference traces¶

A collection of raw native outputs captured from the manager’s own CLI and recorded in the manager source. If you know Snap well and a transcript below looks wrong, or a newer release changed its output format, report it.

$ snap list --color=never
Name    Version    Rev   Aufzeichnung   Herausgeber     Hinweise
core    16-2.44.1  8935  latest/stable  canonical✓      core
wechat  2.0        7     latest/stable  ubuntu-dawndiy  -
pdftk   2.02-4     9     latest/stable  smoser          -

$ snap refresh --list --color=never
Name            Version  Rev  Herausgeber     Hinweise
standard-notes  3.3.5    8    standardnotes✓  -

Version check¶

The version is probed by running:

$ snap --version
snap       2.44.1
snapd      2.44.1
series     16
linuxmint  19.3
kernel     4.15.0-91-generic

and extracted with:

r"snap\s+(?P<version>\S+)"

Upstream project¶

Metrics	`canonical/snapd`
Activity
Popularity
Metadata

Changelog¶

7.5.0 (2026-08-03)
- Fix snap remove failing with error: unknown flag 'color' on recent snapd by no longer appending --color=never, which remove does not accept.
7.4.0 (2026-07-25)
- Mutating operations now escalate through sudo by default, matching each tool’s canonical invocation (sudo port install, sudo pkg install, sudo snap install): MacPorts installs root-owned under /opt/local, the FreeBSD pkg frontend gains the markers its ports sibling already had, and snapd denies state changes from an unprivileged client. Opt out with --no-sudo or a per-manager sudo = false override. pkg passes IGNORE_OSVERSION as a command-line option now, which survives the sudo environment reset where the environment variable would be stripped.
6.4.0 (2026-04-27)
- Add remove operation. Closes #1775.
5.5.0 (2022-07-08)
- Fix parsing of empty search results.
4.13.1 (2022-04-17)
- Fix command argument order. Address #579.
3.2.0 (2020-05-31)
- Add support for snap on Linux.