Using rpak

rpak wraps flatpak. We recommend aliasing flatpak to it, so you keep typing the commands you know:

Parallel downloads: install and update fetch app installers several at a time instead of one after another.
Cleaning up: frees the installer copies Flatpak keeps after every install or update; rpak clean frees older ones and other leftovers.
Fully compatible: every other flatpak command and option is passed through unchanged.

Installing

curl -Lo ~/.local/bin/rpak https://github.com/flatpark/rpak/releases/latest/download/rpak-linux-amd64   # aarch64: rpak-linux-arm64
chmod +x ~/.local/bin/rpak

Or with mise: mise use -g github:flatpark/rpak.

Alias and completion

For zsh, add this to ~/.zshrc after compinit:

if (( $+commands[rpak] )); then
  alias flatpak=rpak
  () {
    local dir=${XDG_CACHE_HOME:-$HOME/.cache}/zsh
    [[ -d $dir ]] || mkdir -p $dir
    [[ $dir/_rpak -nt $commands[rpak] ]] || rpak completion zsh >| $dir/_rpak
    fpath=($dir $fpath)
    autoload -Uz _rpak && compdef _rpak rpak
  }
fi

For bash: alias flatpak=rpak and source <(rpak completion bash) in ~/.bashrc. For fish: the same alias and rpak completion fish | source in config.fish.

Software centres and automatic updates still call flatpak directly; run rpak clean now and then to free what they leave.