qpm: qutebrowser profile manager

qutebrowser is a web browser with vim-like keybindings. It's great! qpm is a small tool for creating qutebrowser profiles, directories you can tell qutebrowser to store its config and data in using the --basedir flag. You can use qpm to create profiles that share config with your standard qutebrowser installation and run them using the launch subcommand, which wraps qutebrowser and points --basedir at your profile directory. qutebrowser sessions started with different base directories are entirely separate, have their own histories and sessions, and can be opened and closed independently. They're very useful!

Use cases

• Use a work profile to isolate your work logins from your personal ones. Especially important if you have a work account on Google or Github!
• Project-based profiles. I have a qpm profile which has library documentation, qutebrowser config, CI results, issues and PRs, and everything I need to work on qpm.
• Because web browsers are hideous monstrosities, qutebrowser leaks a little bit of memory. If you leave it open 24/7 that can become a lot. I use profiles both to organize my browsing and to keep my number of open tabs down, especially on machines with less memory. Since profiles open and close very quickly and keep a persisent session, I can open sets of tabs when I need them and close them when I don't, knowing I won't lose them.

Usage

# create and launch a new profile called "finance" in $XDG_DATA_HOME/qutebrowser-profiles:
$ qpm new finance --launch
# or
$ qpm launch --new finance

# convert the contents of a window into a new profile:
# in qutebrowser, run: "session-save -o profile-name"
$ qpm from-session profile-name

# you can store profiles anywhere:
$ qpm --profile-dir ~/dev/my-project new project-info
$ cd ~/dev/my-project
$ qpm --profile-dir . launch project-info
# or
$ qutebrowser --basedir profile-name

# launch passes arguments it doesn't recognize to qutebrowser:
$ qpm launch python docs.python.org --target window --loglevel info
# is functionally equivalent to:
$ qutebrowser --basedir $XDG_DATA_HOME/qutebrowser-profiles/python docs.python.org --target window --loglevel info

Disclaimer

This is alpha-quality software. Even though it doesn't do anything particularly dangerous to the filesystem, there is always the risk that it will mangle your data.

Version 0.2

• More qb config flags (e.g. home page)
• Interactive profile creation
• Installation instructions

Future work

• More shared config and data (configurable)
• Generated binaries and .desktop files
• Delete profiles?
• Use any profile as a base for new profiles (currently only the main config in $XDG_CONFIG_HOME is supported)
• Source autoconfig.yml instead of config.py
• Customizable config sourcing for those who like to split their config into multiple files
• Bundled config file optimized for single-site browsing
• qpm.conf to configure the features above
• Someday: qutebrowser plugin

Known limitations

• If your config relies on config.configdir to dynamically source other config files (I may be the only person who does this), those config files will not be present in qpm-created profiles There are plenty of workarounds, such as hardcoding your main config dir instead of using config.configdir.