Name
xdg-user-dirs-update - Update XDG user dir configurationSynopsis
xdg-user-dirs-update [OPTION...] [--set\ NAME\ PATH...]
Description
xdg-user-dirs-update updates the current state of the users user-dirs.dir. If none existed before then one is created based on the system default values, or falling back to the old non-translated filenames if such directories exists. The list of old directories used are: ~/Desktop, ~/Templates and ~/Public.
If an old configuration exists it is updated with any new default directories. Additionally, any configured directories that point to non-existing locations are reset by pointing then to the users home directory. This typically happens when the users removed the directory, so they likely don\*(Aqt want to use it anymore.
On the first run a user-dirs.locale file is created containing the locale that was used for the translation. This is used later by GUI tools like xdg-user-dirs-gtk-update to detect if the locale was changed, letting you to migrate from the old names.
xdg-user-dirs-update is normally run automatically at the start of a user session to update the XDG user dirs according to the users locale.
Options
The following options are understood:
--help Print help output and exit.
--force Update existing user-dirs.dir, but force a full reset. This means: Don\*(Aqt reset nonexisting directories to HOME, rather recreate the directory. Never use backwards compatible non-translated names. Always recreate user-dirs.locale.
--dummy-output PATH Write the configuration to PATH instead of the default configuration file. Also, no directories are created.
--set NAME PATH Sets the XDG user dir with the given name. NAME should be one of the following: DESKTOP DOWNLOAD TEMPLATES PUBLICSHARE DOCUMENTS MUSIC PICTURES VIDEOS PATH must be an absolute path, e.g. $HOME/Some/Directory.
Files
The XDG user dirs configuration is stored in the user-dirs.dir file in the location pointed to by the XDG_CONFIG_HOME environment variable.
Environment
The XDG_CONFIG_HOME environment variable determines where the user-dirs.dirs file is located.
See Also
xdg-user-dir(1), user-dirs.dirs(5), user-dirs.defaults(5), user-dirs.conf(5).