Where Does Helm Store Config, Cache and Data?
Helm XDG directories on Linux with repositories.yaml, registry config, cache and plugins.
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Helm splits local state three ways per the XDG spec: repo lists and registry credentials in config, chart cache in cache, plugins and data in data. Releases themselves live in the cluster, never on disk.
Environment variables override every path, so check them before trusting defaults. Copy the config tree to move repo setup; cache rebuilds itself.
Where Helm stores this, by platform
~/.config/helm
Holds repositories.yaml with chart repo URLs and registry config with OCI credentials. Cache sits at ~/.cache/helm with repository indexes, and plugins plus data at ~/.local/share/helm. Overrides come from HELM_CONFIG_HOME, HELM_CACHE_HOME and HELM_DATA_HOME. Restrict the config tree since it holds registry tokens.
Frequently asked questions
Where are my Helm repositories listed?
In repositories.yaml inside the config folder above. Copy it to a new machine instead of re-adding every repo.
How do I completely uninstall Helm data?
Remove the binary plus the config, cache and data trees above. Cluster releases stay untouched until helm uninstall runs against them.
Notice an outdated path? Let us know.