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Where Does Lando Store Config and App Data?

Lando splits config three ways: a global home folder, per-project Landofiles, and a gitignored local override file.

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Lando keeps global state in a .lando directory inside your home folder on every OS. That folder holds the global config.yml, SSH keys, certificates and caches. It is created on first run, so a fresh machine will not have one until Lando launches once.

Project config is the opposite of global: it lives with your code. Each app root carries a .lando.yml Landofile that should be committed, plus an optional .lando.local.yml override for machine-specific tweaks that stays gitignored. The databases themselves live in Docker volumes, not in files you can copy.

Where Lando stores this, by platform

Linux
~/.lando

Global config.yml, keys and certs live here. Per-project .lando.yml files sit in each app root. Run lando config to see exactly which config sources are active.

macOS
~/.lando

Same home-folder layout as Linux. Docker Desktop holds the actual volumes, so list them with docker volume ls when hunting disk usage.

Windows
C:\Users\[Username]\.lando

Same contents under the Windows profile. WSL2 users get a separate Linux-side ~/.lando inside the distro, which is the one that matters.

Frequently asked questions

Which Lando files should I commit to git?

Commit .lando.yml and any base files like .lando.dist.yml. Never commit .lando.local.yml, which exists precisely for personal overrides that should stay on your machine.

Where is my Lando app database actually stored?

In a Docker volume, not a file. Use lando db-export to dump it to SQL before destroying an app, since deleting volumes wipes data with no recycle bin.

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