SEEDFILES(8)

📦 version 1.7.2, in nixpkgs unstable, ubuntu stonking

✨ SEEDFILES(8) ✨

okay bestie so this is a User Commands page, section 8, and it's literally all about seedfiles 💖

🌸 NAME 🌸

seedfiles — manage temporary files and directories. yes. that's the whole vibe. temp files. directories. managing them. slay.

🦋 SYNOPSIS 🦋

seedfiles [OPTIONS...] [CONFIG_FILE...]

💅 DESCRIPTION 💅

seedfiles provides a drop-in replacement for systemd-tmpfiles. periodt. it just does the thing, and it does it iconically.

If CONFIG_FILE arguments are given, they specify the configuration files to process. here's the teaaaa:

  • An argument containing a slash (like /etc/foo.conf or ./foo.conf) is treated as a direct path. simple. no games.
  • Otherwise, the argument is interpreted as a bare configuration file name and looked up in the configured tmpfiles.d directories in order — the same set used when no arguments are given, depending on --user. ok so.
  • The full filename including any .conf suffix must be specified. like, don't be shy, give the whole name.
  • If a bare name cannot be resolved in any configuration directory, seedfiles exits with an error. 💀 rude but fair.

🎀 Commands:

  • --create — Create files and directories ✨
  • --clean — Clean up old files 🧹
  • --remove — Remove files and directories 🗑️

👑 OPTIONS 👑

  • --boot — Also process entries with the '!' modifier
  • --dry-run — Only print what would be done. a little preview, a lil peek, a vibe check before you commit 🔮
  • --prefix=PATH — Only process entries with matching prefix
  • --exclude-prefix=PATH — Exclude entries with matching prefix. the opposite of the above, we're picky now 💅
  • --user — Run in user mode
  • --root=PATH — All paths, including configuration directories, are interpreted relative to PATH. User and group names are resolved from PATH/etc/passwd and PATH/etc/group instead of the host NSS database. The %m specifier reads PATH/etc/machine-id. Symlinks whose targets would escape PATH are refused. Mutually exclusive with --user. bestie they cannot both show up to the party, pick one 🫶
  • --verbose — Enable verbose logging. she's chatty now 💬
  • -h, --help — Show this help
  • --version — Show version

😭 MISSING FEATURES 😭

not everything made it to the group chat, so let's be honest about it:

  • SELinux — No label management, -z/-Z only do chmod/chown
  • age-by — Timestamp in age column is ignored, only mtime is checked by cleanup
  • credentials — No systemd-credentials support
  • BTRFS — -v/-q/-Q fall back to mkdir, don't act on subvolumes/quotas
fr fr, if you were counting on any of the above, this is your heads up 🌈

Copyright © 2026 Matthias Geiger <werdahias@debian.org>.

This manual page was written for the Debian system (and may be used by others).

Permission is granted to copy, distribute and/or modify this document under the terms of the GNU General Public License, Version 3 or (at your option) any later version published by the Free Software Foundation.

and that's the whole page bestie, no notes 💖 this was seedfiles version 1.4.2, from May 2026, and it ate, no cap 👑✨🦋🎀

📦 where this page comes from