How can I access and backup ~/.gvfs and ~/.cache/dconf?

Solution 1:

You don't need to backup your ~/.cache and ~/.gvfs folders since:

~/.cache contains only the cached data and is used only to speed up access

and

~/.gvfs folder is the place where GVFS mounts volumes, it would usually be empty if you have not mounted any folders inside it. (Many a times, this is where mobile systems are mounted).

You could ignore this error while backing up.

However, if you really want to back it up, you could read the data using sudo:

sudo cp ~/.cache/dconf/ <destination> -r
sudo cp ~/.gvfs/ <destination> -r

replacing <destination> with the location where you want to backup to, and then enter your administrative password.