Download only with snap

Question

I've looked through the man pages and searched on AU, but I seem to be unable to find a way to download only a snap package. I want to download only for install on another computer. Is it possible, and if so, how?

Answer 1

You can download snap by using the snap download command. For example:

snap download simplenote

This will download a .assert and a .snap file to your current directory.

You will also need the ubuntu-core package:

snap download ubuntu-core

Copy all files to the computer where you want to install, then install like this:

snap ack ubuntu-core**.assert
snap install ubuntu-core**.snap
snap ack simplenote**.assert
snap install simplenote**.snap

You need to install the snapd package on the offline computer. You can download that using apt download snapd (on your internet-connected computer).

And install it using the provided install.sh script:

cd /path/to/download/folder
sudo ./install.sh

Answer 2

First you have to install the "basic" snap ubuntu-core, on which all snap applications are running. Open a terminal and execute this command : sudo snap install ubuntu-core
Now you are able to install "normal" snap applications, here an example to install nmap:
sudo snap install nmap ... you can update this snap with : sudo snap refresh nmap

Update with instructions how to download a snap package and install it on an offline computer : First you have to find out the download location of the snap package you want to download. In the example nmapabove it is -> https://launchpad.net/~joetalbott/+snap/nmap/+build/1021.
To install it execute : sudo snap install /path-to-the-downloaded-file/filename.snap

Update with an explanation addressing your question how to find various snap packages :
Unlike the way installing software from repositories, snap packages are designed to work independently on supported Linux systems, so all dependencies are included in each snap.
As a consequence there is not a single snap store where all the snap packages are located.

Everyone can create snap packages and choose the location where they are stored. What you want is possible but not the way it is supposed to work, in these days nearly everybody has an internet connection and in the case of Ubuntu you should use the standard way, just as you do when installing or updating applications from the repositories ... otherwise you have to search.

Here is one location where you can find many snaps to download manually : uApp Explorer.com
As snap packages become more popular over time, many developers offer them as a download alternative to .deb files - this is a current example from the notes application : get-notes.com