Geary flatpak - autostart in background

[realgrm (Gabriel Mattoso)]

I just want to share a workaround I found to run Geary at startup in the background, while is not implemented upstream.

Related issue: GitLab - Known Flatpak limitations

How did I find out

• I closed Geary and verified that it was still receiving emails.
• searched in the task manager for the geary process
• It was still running in the background. And there was the --gapplication-service argument after the command.

• ended the related processes (including bwrap)
• ran flatpak run org.gnome.Geary --gapplication-service from the terminal and
• sent a test email to myself. he was received

Steps to auto start

Added Geary (flatpak) to autostart using Gnome Tweaks

• Gnome Tweaks >> Startup applications >> Add >> Geary

And after some tries of modifying the ~/.config/autostart/org.gnome.Geary.desktop file I realized that it works by :

• adding the argument --gapplication-service at the end of the execution command and
• disabling the DBusActivatable, by commenting the line DBusActivatable=true

Steps to autostart - Alternative

# copy desktop file to auto start in home folder
cp /var/lib/flatpak/exports/share/applications/org.gnome.Geary.desktop ~/.config/autostart/org.gnome.Geary.desktop

# edit the desktop file
sed -i "/^Exec=/s/$/ --gapplication-service/; \
		s/^DBusActivatable=true/DBusActivatable=false/g" \
		~/.config/autostart/org.gnome.Geary.desktop

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I don’t actually know the real implications of disabling the DBusActivatable or if there’s a better solution.

[realgrm (Gabriel Mattoso)]

Image of the final result of Steps to auto start