(newbie)where is the .config file supposed to be exactly? (there's two folder for it in ?Linux Mint)

[ImightbeAhuman]

so I tried looking for information about this but there are varying answers and its kind of conflicting which one I'm supposed to follow.

so just a little bit of context: I installed MPV's flatpak version by downloading it directly from the web (from Flathub I think) cause i needed the latest version. (i'm still unsure how flatpak's version differs from the ones in default repository but anyway..thats another thing to learn later...) I was having problems with the version (0.37.0) in default software manager and installing the flatpak version seem to fix them.

so i'm trying to learn how to configure mpv and already struggling with the first step. I don't know which folder i'm supposed to find the config files or create it because there's two folder for it. one is the home/USER/.config/mpv and IT DOES NOT have any files in it. the other is etc/mpv/ and it DOES HAVE a input.conf and mpv.conf file in it.

looking for an answer for this in different forums, other say i'm supposed to create a config in home/USER/.config/mpv but then other posts says there should be a mpv.conf in there already. but the only folder (that I could find) that has the config files is the one on etc folder.
whats the difference between these two? am i supposed to modify the one in etc folder or create one in home/USER/.config/mpv ?

[llyyr]

Flatpak config directly should be Flatpak: mpv config directory is ~/.var/app/io.mpv.Mpv/config/mpv.

/etc/ is the global config directory, while ~/.config is user specific. This has nothing to do with mpv, this is how every config file on linux works

[ImightbeAhuman]

This has nothing to do with mpv, this is how every config file on linux works

sorry I only recently started linux and still learning...

I can't seem to find .var/app?
I went to file system>right click>open as root>go to var folder and it only has:
backups, cache, lib, local, lock, log, mail, opt, run, spool, tmp, and a .updated file

[adisib]

Sounds like you are describing the var directory under root, "/var". That is not the same as "~/.var". In Linux, ~ represents your user's home directory, e.g. "/home/ImightbeAhuman". Maybe you have to create "~/.var/app/io.mpv.Mpv/config/mpv" if it doesn't exist?

[ImightbeAhuman]

edit: I'm an idiot. it seems like I just have to press ctrl+H to see it...funnily enough I didn't found out about ctrl+H solution by searching about the problem. I accidentally found it while looking at other distro's (Pop OS!) shortcuts lmao