This is a little vague of a question, but one clarification. /home/deck/.var/app (also known as ~/.var/app) is only for flatpak apps. These would be apps you installed by using Discover or the flatpak install command. You didn't really specify how you installed them, but if it is any other way it'll have a different location.

EDIT: Oh I missed the part about Citra. That sounds like dolphin itself might be sandboxed from ~/.var/app... but I don't think mine is. Maybe I already fixed it. I'll let someone else chime in.

Just for the record - I've installed several flatpak apps as well as others, such as EmuDeck, but only Dolphin itself shows up in ~/.var/app. I suspect Dolphin is sandboxed. When I check out properties for ~/var/app, it gives a number of about two dozen apps.

An update: my issue still exists. I have installed another file manager, CoreFM. It has the same issue. I have given both file managers permissions through Flatseal. Nothing changes. I have enabled the "view hidden files" option. Nothing changes. I contacted Steam Support. They told me, in their generic language, that they are busy with other things and can't help me with this. Someone at DosBox-X has tried to help. I posted on the Dolphin file manager forum and have had no response. I can't be the only one with this issue.

For those who tuned in late, this is the issue: no matter what file manager I use, the only folder I can see in the ~/home/.var/app folder is the folder for the file manager app itself. Yet in Properties, I'm told that there are some two dozen folders there. Moreover, in Citra, if I use the "load file" command and navigate to ~/home/.var/app, I can see all the folders.

Why is this important for me? It would give me access to the .conf files in the DosBox-X folder so I can more easily set up .conf files for each of my DOS games. Access to the app folders would also help set up some emulators.

Sooooo..... if anyone has any helpful insights, please share them.

Thanks!!

I have same issue, nothing but org.kde.dolphin folder in the gui. If you open terminal there and type ls you can see other folders. I already can see hidden folders. And it only seems to be issue with this folder. Which is annoying as there's plenty of things I need to see by GUI in there atm

Hmm, just fixed it... Noted you mentioned flatseal and hadn't thought of that. Allowed all permission for filesystem and also the path to /home/deck/.var/app then closed flatseal and dolphin and then reopened dolphin and went to location. Cheers, as this has been like this for months!

Don't know if you're still looking, but maybe this will help you https://www.reddit.com/r/SteamDeck/comments/x58m11/how_to_apply_custom_textures_dolphin_emulator/

I often use Kate's "open file/folder" to navigate those hidden paths, as seemingly Kate's file manager is more capable than Dolphin's... CoreFM doesn't work for me too.

EDIT: It's working for now. I had Bauh installed (not that easy to install btw) and I checked which apps I had installed. Turns out I had two versions of Dolphin File Manager: one from a flatpak and another from Arch repository. I got rid of the flatpak version and nothing seemed to change, but when I opened Dolphin. everything inside .var was showing!

https://imgur.com/a/rKYAGer

Originally posted by Eulloyd:

I often use Kate's "open file/folder" to navigate those hidden paths, as seemingly Kate's file manager is more capable than Dolphin's... CoreFM doesn't work for me too.

EDIT: It's working for now. I had Bauh installed (not that easy to install btw) and I checked which apps I had installed. Turns out I had two versions of Dolphin File Manager: one from a flatpak and another from Arch repository. I got rid of the flatpak version and nothing seemed to change, but when I opened Dolphin. everything inside .var was showing!

https://imgur.com/a/rKYAGer

Thank you so much! This was my issue I've been beating against for days now. Had no idea there was a "lite" flatpak version of the dolphin file explorer with less privileges then an already included "full" version. Haha what a headache but thank you so much!.

I can finally mod OpenMW for morrowind and adjust the openMW.cfg file!!!!