Arch Linux

spiritech

Member

Registered: 2013-11-27

Posts: 63

[SOLVED] Unwanted Folders

Hi.

Downloads and Desktop folders keep appearing in my home folder. how can i stop them from being generated ??

I am currently using pcmanfm.

spiritech

Last edited by spiritech (2014-01-27 20:41:16)

jpgg

Member

Registered: 2014-01-15

Posts: 43

Re: [SOLVED] Unwanted Folders

It is likely a program (not pcmanfm) that is creating them when it is run. I had this problem too when I used more programs. Sometimes a Desktop folder would appear in my home directory.

Do you have Firefox or Chromium installed? They might be the culprits. They both need to know where to download files and they might create the Downloads folder if it doesn't exist. You can try changing you download path and see if the Downloads folder still appears. As for the Desktop folder, I don't know what program would need it.

Last edited by jpgg (2014-01-26 05:17:54)

spiritech

Member

Registered: 2013-11-27

Posts: 63

Re: [SOLVED] Unwanted Folders

It is likely a program (not pcmanfm) that is creating them when it is run. I had this problem too when I used more programs. Sometimes a Desktop folder would appear in my home directory.

Do you have Firefox or Chromium installed? They might be the culprits. They both need to know where to download files and they might create the Downloads folder if it doesn't exist. You can try changing you download path and see if the Downloads folder still appears. As for the Desktop folder, I don't know what program would need it.

Thanks for your reply i thought it might be firefox for the downloads. the settings i have tho are ask where to save each time. not sure what is responsible for the desktop folder either. will just work round it for now by deleting them somewhere on start up.

thanks spiritech.

Slithery

Administrator

From: Norfolk, UK

Registered: 2013-12-01

Posts: 5,776

Re: [SOLVED] Unwanted Folders

The application(s) that are creating these directories will be doing so according to your xdg user directories settings.

Editing your ~/.config/user-dirs.dirs to point Desktop and Downloads to an existing folder ($HOME for example) should stop your unwanted directories being recreated.

Last edited by Slithery (2014-01-26 10:06:45)

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spiritech

Member

Registered: 2013-11-27

Posts: 63

Re: [SOLVED] Unwanted Folders

The application(s) that are creating these directories will be doing so according to your xdg user directories settings.

Editing your ~/.config/user-dirs.dirs to point Desktop and Downloads to an existing folder ($HOME for example) should stop your unwanted directories being recreated.

well this is odd. xdg user directories was not installed. so i installed it edited the ~/.config/user-dirs.dirs file to point Desktop and Downloads to "$HOME". i then deleted the Desktop and Downloads folder and after reboot the folders were recreated again.

Last edited by spiritech (2014-01-27 20:17:46)

progandy

Member

Registered: 2012-05-17

Posts: 5,203

Re: [SOLVED] Unwanted Folders

Thanks for your reply i thought it might be firefox for the downloads. the settings i have tho are ask where to save each time. not sure what is responsible for the desktop folder either. will just work round it for now by deleting them somewhere on start up.

thanks spiritech.

Did you try to set firefox to save all downloads in a specified folder, select a folder, apply and then change back to ask for location?

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spiritech

Member

Registered: 2013-11-27

Posts: 63

Re: [SOLVED] Unwanted Folders

Did you try to set firefox to save all downloads in a specified folder, select a folder, apply and then change back to ask for location?

i wll try this for the ~/Downloads folder. tho that still leaves the ~/Desktop folder to deal with.

spiritech

Member

Registered: 2013-11-27

Posts: 63

Re: [SOLVED] Unwanted Folders

solved. the culprit was transmission. the file i needed to edit was ~/.config/transmission/settings.json

or transmission - edit - preferences - download tab

spiritech

Last edited by spiritech (2014-01-27 21:53:20)