Curt Howland wrote: > > On Saturday 27 September 2025, Curt Howland was heard to say: >> My main system doesn't have this problem, I have no idea what I did >> right with that one. > > Found it. > > If the entry is commented out in ~/.config/user-dirs.dirs it gets > recreated automagically. > > #XDG_DOWNLOAD_DIR="$HOME/Downloads" > > becomes > > XDG_DOWNLOAD_DIR="$HOME/Downloads" > > However, if the entry in ~/.config/user-dirs.dirs is like this: > > XDG_DESKTOP_DIR="$HOME/Desktop" > XDG_DOWNLOAD_DIR="$HOME/" > XDG_MUSIC_DIR="$HOME/" > XDG_PICTURES_DIR="$HOME/" > XDG_PUBLICSHARE_DIR="$HOME/" > XDG_TEMPLATES_DIR="$HOME/" > XDG_VIDEOS_DIR="$HOME/" > XDG_DOCUMENTS_DIR="$HOME/"
i last edited this file back in 2018 and have forgotten about it but it works fine for MATE. > the directories are not created, since ~/ already exists. > > On prior machines I had been copying the .config directory in its > entirety, something I did not want to do again because cruft builds > up. > > Many thanks, Mr. Heller, hopefully this will help some folks who find > themselves having to create empty files to stop the directories being > created. > > Curt- songbird
