---
name: "user-dirs.defaults"
section: "5"
platform: "linux"
package: "xdg-user-dirs"
version: "0.20-1"
release: "Arch Linux 2026-11-01"
platforms: ["linux"]
url: "https://new.carta.tech/user-dirs.defaults"
---

# user-dirs.defaults(5)

default settings for XDG user dirs

## NAME

user-dirs.defaults - default settings for XDG user dirs

## DESCRIPTION

The /etc/xdg/user-dirs.defaults file is a text file that contains the default values for the XDG user dirs which are used by the xdg-user-dirs-update command.

This file contains lines of the form

```
NAME=VALUE
```

The following names are recognised:

DESKTOP

DOWNLOAD

TEMPLATES

PUBLICSHARE

DOCUMENTS

MUSIC

PICTURES

VIDEOS

The values are relative pathnames from the home directory and will be translated on a per-path-element basis into the users locale.

Lines beginning with a # character are ignored.

## ENVIRONMENT

**XDG\_CONFIG\_DIRS**

The user-dirs.defaults file is located in this directory. The default is /etc/xdg.

## SEE ALSO

[**xdg-user-dirs-update**(1)](/xdg-user-dirs-update/1.md)

## AUTHOR

**Alexander Larsson** \<alexl@redhat.com\>

Developer