Desktop icon position (programmatically access and manipulate)

Question

I'd like to programmatically access and manipulate the Desktop icon positions, their icons, etc.

This is for files and directories that you keep in ~/Desktop .

Where is this stuff stored?

dess · Accepted Answer · 2017-03-14T23:10:43.890

9

Stored as GVFS metadata attributes.

To get all GVFS metadata attributes for file/directory:

gvfs-info '/home/user/Desktop/Untitled Folder/'

To get specific attribute - icon position:

gvfs-info -a 'metadata::nautilus-icon-position' '/home/user/Desktop/Untitled Document/'

To set icon position:

gvfs-set-attribute -t string '/home/user/Desktop/Untitled Document/' 'metadata::nautilus-icon-position' '500,500'

Remember to refresh desktop (F5 key) to see effect.

If lower level manipulation required there is Nautilus Extension API (via libnautilus):

and specifically:

edited Mar 14 '17 at 23:10

answered Jan 13 '15 at 17:18

dess

This works well for actual files; is it also possible to access `metadata::nautilus-icon-position` for the special icons that appear on the desktop for USB drives, ‘Home’, etc? `gvfs-info -a 'metadata::nautilus-icon-position' '/home/user/Desktop/External-drive'` says “No such file or directory”. – Honore Doktorr Jan 11 '17 at 22:17
The commands are now `gio info` and `gio set`, for example on Ubuntu 18.04. – David Oct 27 '18 at 02:25
With the gio utility: To get all metadata attributes for file/directory: `gio info '/home/user/Desktop/Untitled Folder/'` To set icon position: `gio set --type=string '/home/user/Desktop/Untitled Folder/' 'metadata::nautilus-icon-position' '500,500'` – PaulRM Jan 27 '20 at 13:40

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