25

Is it possible to rename default directories like ~/Documents, ~/Music, ~/Videos?

Especially I want to rename Videos to Movies.

Hugo
  • 144
  • 11
madox2
  • 775
  • 1
  • 12
  • 29
  • Possible duplicate of [this question](http://askubuntu.com/questions/18103/how-can-i-change-the-default-location-of-content-directories-eg-pictures-templ?rq=1) – Kevin Bowen Jan 15 '13 at 22:13
  • possible duplicate of [Is it safe to rename special user folders?](http://askubuntu.com/questions/22592/is-it-safe-to-rename-special-user-folders) – stephenmyall Jan 15 '13 at 23:13

2 Answers2

22

Yes, the default home folders are defined in .config/user-dirs.dirs, which is a hidden configuration file, and you can open it with gedit .config/user-dirs.dirs. It looks like this, which is, hopefully, self-explanitory:

# This file is written by xdg-user-dirs-update
# If you want to change or add directories, just edit the line you're
# interested in. All local changes will be retained on the next run
# Format is XDG_xxx_DIR="$HOME/yyy", where yyy is a shell-escaped
# homedir-relative path, or XDG_xxx_DIR="/yyy", where /yyy is an
# absolute path. No other format is supported.
# 
XDG_DESKTOP_DIR="$HOME/Desktop"
XDG_DOWNLOAD_DIR="$HOME/Downloads"
XDG_PUBLICSHARE_DIR="$HOME/Public"
XDG_DOCUMENTS_DIR="$HOME/Documents"
XDG_MUSIC_DIR="$HOME/Music"
XDG_PICTURES_DIR="$HOME/Pictures"
XDG_VIDEOS_DIR="$HOME/Videos"
XDG_TEMPLATES_DIR="$HOME/Templates"

Logout/login for the changed to take effect.

mikewhatever
  • 32,243
  • 10
  • 87
  • 98
  • And how can I rename these folders? I can change path here only. – madox2 Jan 15 '13 at 19:32
  • Just type a different name, for example `"$HOME/Movies"` instead of `"$HOME/Videos"`. – mikewhatever Jan 15 '13 at 19:35
  • 1
    I want to add that it took a restart for me to make the changes take effect. Wasn't obvious for me. – CharlyDelta Aug 23 '15 at 12:05
  • Works on Ubuntu MATE 16.04 LTS and Ubuntu MATE 18.04 LTS, but BlueMan does not respect name change of *Downloads* directory - it is [bug 1778423](https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/blueman/+bug/1778423). – N0rbert Jun 24 '18 at 19:17
5

As I remember, Nautilus updates user directories if you simply rename them via the file manager. So I think right-clicking on the directory and choosing "Rename" from the menu should do the trick - just rename Videos to Movies in the file manager, it will remember the change.

Sergey
  • 43,339
  • 13
  • 106
  • 107