Rename default user directories

Question

Is it possible to rename default directories like ~/Documents, ~/Music, ~/Videos?

Especially I want to rename Videos to Movies.

Solution 1

Yes, the default home folders are defined in .config/user-dirs.dirs, which is a hidden configuration file, and you can open it with gedit .config/user-dirs.dirs. It looks like this, which is, hopefully, self-explanitory:

# This file is written by xdg-user-dirs-update
# If you want to change or add directories, just edit the line you're
# interested in. All local changes will be retained on the next run
# Format is XDG_xxx_DIR="$HOME/yyy", where yyy is a shell-escaped
# homedir-relative path, or XDG_xxx_DIR="/yyy", where /yyy is an
# absolute path. No other format is supported.
# 
XDG_DESKTOP_DIR="$HOME/Desktop"
XDG_DOWNLOAD_DIR="$HOME/Downloads"
XDG_PUBLICSHARE_DIR="$HOME/Public"
XDG_DOCUMENTS_DIR="$HOME/Documents"
XDG_MUSIC_DIR="$HOME/Music"
XDG_PICTURES_DIR="$HOME/Pictures"
XDG_VIDEOS_DIR="$HOME/Videos"
XDG_TEMPLATES_DIR="$HOME/Templates"

Logout/login for the changed to take effect.

Solution 2

As I remember, Nautilus updates user directories if you simply rename them via the file manager. So I think right-clicking on the directory and choosing "Rename" from the menu should do the trick - just rename Videos to Movies in the file manager, it will remember the change.

Comments

[stephenmyall]

possible duplicate of Is it safe to rename special user folders?

[madox2]

And how can I rename these folders? I can change path here only.

[mikewhatever]

Just type a different name, for example "$HOME/Movies" instead of "$HOME/Videos".

[metakermit]

That's right, I just did it this way - much more user-friendly.

[CharlyDelta]

I want to add that it took a restart for me to make the changes take effect. Wasn't obvious for me.

[CharlyDelta]

Did not work for me on Ubuntu 15.04

[N0rbert]

Works on Ubuntu MATE 16.04 LTS and Ubuntu MATE 18.04 LTS, but BlueMan does not respect name change of Downloads directory - it is bug 1778423.

[asa]

@CharlyDelta in ubuntu you have to manually change the path. when you rename this "label" to Movies, the path isn't automatically updated, this is still pointing to the old "/home/username/Videos"