On windows 10, I have several folders corresponding to Local:
in “appdata/roaming” named:
“Local by FlyWheel”
“Local”
in “appdata/local” named:
“local-by-flywheel-updater” containing the file “installer.exe” (Version 3.3.0.0)
“local-updater” containing the file “installer.exe” (Version 5.0.7.0)
but a single folder containing an executable program “Local by Flywheel.exe” (version 3.3.0) in “appdata/local/programs/local-by-flywheel”.
I tried to install Local 5.0.7 +1117 but it didn’t work properly and I don’t remember how I uninstalled it.
Briefly, I want to install the latest version of Local Lightning, and import my sites from Local Classic to Local Lightning, but before I would like to know if these folder “local” and “local-updater” which seem to correspond to local 5.0.7 can be deleted without risk first?
I think that this is confusing in part because our app is named as a generic “thing” – “Local.”
The appdata/local folder is a Windows thing and means something more along the lines of “windows things that are locally used on this machine.” That’s why you see the installers within that folder – yes, the are used by Local, but more specifically, they are used by Windows to install a piece of software that happens to be named Local.
The appdata/roaming folder is basically a place for Windows apps to store their configuration settings. So in Local’s case, these would be things like the “name” or “domain” of a site, or if you have connected to Flywheel or WP Engine.
You probably don’t want to delete anything with appdata/roaming because it might break the sites that you are using.
One other confusing thing about this is that there are technically two different Local apps.
“Local by Flywheel” is the really old version of Local (Local Classic) and made use of a virtual machine to manage sites.
“Local” (sometimes called “Local Lightning”) is the newer, and current version of Local. We opted to have two separate apps because the latest version was so different that it made more sense to have a clean break between the two versions.
Since you mention wanting to migrate from Local Classic to Local Lightning, I would recommend a few things:
Don’t delete anything in these folders yet
Follow the steps in this help doc to export the sites from Classic and then import them into Lightning:
Once everything looks good and the sites are running on Local Lightning, you should be ok to delete the things related to Local Classic. More info about uninstalling Local Classic can be found in this help doc: