The /snap directory is, by default, where the files and folders from installed snap packages appear on your system.
It has the following structure:
/snap/bin - Symlinks to snap applications
/snap/<snapname>/<revision> - Mountpoint for snap content
/snap/<snapname>/current - Symlink to current revision, if enabled
Storage space
A file manager, or the output from some storage-related commands, will show the files and directories within /snap taking up space:
$ du -hs /snap/vlc
766M /snap/vlc
However, these files and folders are mounted from the heavily compressed data that’s stored within the original snap, located in /var/lib/snapd/snaps. These snaps take far less space on your system than their mount points imply:
$ mount | grep vlc
/var/lib/snapd/snaps/vlc_555.snap on /snap/vlc/555 type squashfs (ro,nodev,relatime,x-gdu.hide)
$ df -h
Filesystem Size Used Avail Use% Mounted on
/dev/loop12 196M 196M 0 100% /snap/vlc/555
[...]
For a detailed overview of what a snap is, see The snap format documentation.
Last updated 4 years ago.