Where Does Scoop Install Apps?
Where Scoop installs apps, buckets, cache and shims under ~/scoop, and the variables that relocate it.
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Scoop keeps its whole world in %USERPROFILE%\scoop: installed apps in apps/ (versioned folders behind a current junction), manifests in buckets/, installers in cache/, surviving data in persist/, and PATH shims in shims/. Nothing escapes the root, which is the entire design promise.
Global installs are the exception that proves it: with the right flag they land under %ProgramData%\scoop instead. Old installs may still show an AppData\Local\scoop path from before the default moved home; that location is legacy, not an alternative to choose.
Where Scoop stores this, by platform
%USERPROFILE%\scoop\apps
Paste %USERPROFILE%\scoop into Explorer. Each app gets versioned folders plus a current link; persist/ holds data that survives updates. shims/ is the only folder on PATH.
Frequently asked questions
How do I move Scoop off C:?
Set SCOOP before installing (per user root) or SCOOP_GLOBAL for machine wide installs under ProgramData. Existing installs do not migrate themselves: set the variable, reinstall Scoop, and reinstall apps. Buckets re add with one command each.
The Scoop cache is huge. What is safe to delete?
Run scoop cache rm -a to empty downloaded installers. The cache only speeds reinstalls; apps run from apps/, not cache/. Persisted data in persist/ survives updates by design, so clean that per app only when starting over.
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