Manual: xdg-user-dirs-update

XDG-USER-DIRS-UPD(1)					User Commands					XDG-USER-DIRS-UPD(1)

NAME
       xdg-user-dirs-update - Update XDG user dir configuration

SYNOPSIS

       xdg-user-dirs-update [OPTION...] [--set NAME PATH...]

DESCRIPTION
       xdg-user-dirs-update updates the current state of the users user-dirs.dirs. 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't 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.dirs, but force a full reset. This means: Don't 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.dirs 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).

AUTHOR
       Alexander Larsson 
	   Developer

XDG							 09/26/2025					XDG-USER-DIRS-UPD(1)