How can I change the default folder location that nautilus opens?

Question

The default is that clicking on the folder in the unity dock opens the home directory.

Since there are shortcuts for all the sub-folders of the home directory in the sidebar already, I'd prefer the default directory to move to a different location (~/Documents).

How can I achieve this?

Solution

Just to be sure, you mean this icon here?

If yes, edit the file /usr/share/applications/nautilus-home.desktop and alter the line (#4):

Exec=nautilus %U

to

Exec=nautilus /your/path/

and save the file. But notice, it will be system wide.

Comments

[chaos]

Can you post the output of this command gsettings list-recursively com.canonical.Unity.Launcher please?

[king_julien]

com.canonical.Unity.Launcher favorite-migration '3.2.10' com.canonical.Unity.Launcher favorites ['nautilus.desktop', 'gnome-terminal.desktop', 'geany.desktop', 'chromium-browser.desktop', 'thunderbird.desktop', 'polly.desktop', 'banshee.desktop', 'xpad.desktop', 'keepassx.desktop']

[king_julien]

Ok, so I just had to edit /usr/share/applications/nautilus.desktop. Alright! It works now :P

[chaos]

FYI: gsettings list-recursively com.canonical.Unity.Launcher lists all your starter shortcuts and what's being executed.

[king_julien]

Mmmh. An unpleasant side-effect now is that once I open downloaded files via chromium in nautilus - nautilus will open two windows: one in the download location and one in the default directory

[Lexible]

This does not work in Ubuntu 18.10.