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I've googled for it, and there's very little info besides "bamf matches application windows to desktop files". Unity depends on it so it's difficut to remove, at least would be good to know what it does.

user1350992
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3 Answers3

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When you open a program, Unity will either pop up a new icon on the launcher(dock) and/or add an arrow to an existing icon. Each icon is not an executable; it is a .desktop file. bamfdaemon helps this by determining whether an arrow needs to be added to an existing icon, or a new icon be popped up, along with other behaviors dependent on application identity.

heemayl
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nanofarad
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    For such a simple thing (adding an arrow to an icon) it does some obscenely complex stuff, judging from the depth of its callstack. Does it really need to be this bloated? https://plus.google.com/+BramStolk/posts/ZzT16MSm2Zn – Bram Nov 21 '17 at 21:49
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I think it is related to Unity Integration for websites. I hope I am right ...

edit: According to this it is:

Window matching library - daemon bamf matches application windows to desktop files

This package contains the daemon used by the library and a gio module that facilitates the matching of applications started through GDesktopAppInfo

Volker Siegel
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Mostafa Shahverdy
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0

bamfdaemon helps this by determining whether an arrow needs to be added to an existing icon, or a new icon be popped up, along with other behaviors dependent on application identity.

in order to append the excellent answer what bamfdaemon can do for you, you can simple uninstall it as a test, without purge option. 

sudo apt-get remove bamfdaemon

This way you will get the idea this daemon is behind ALT+TAB application switcher.

You install it again and everything will be in place:

sudo apt-get install bamfdaemon

If you for instance, kill that process, it will be spawn again, but you may end with icon disorder.

prosti
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    In case anyone breaks their desktop doing this - I had to reinstall unity afterwards. – Błażej Czapp Dec 22 '16 at 12:53
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    -1 The question is not how to uninstall it. OP stated "Unity depends on it so it's difficut to remove", so he clearly knows this. – ardila Mar 08 '19 at 12:09
  • That's the most ridiculous idea I've ever heard. DO NOT DO THIS FOR ANY APPLICATION UNTIL YOU KNOW IF IT IS SAFE TO DO SO. – DennisK Aug 17 '22 at 08:17