Need help changing Videos, Music, Documents, etc... folder locations.

Blarnix

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Hey everyone,
I'm new to ZorinOS 15 and Linux in general (being a Windows user since XP.) and I need to change my default folder locations in the title to my other HDD so as not to fill up my SSD. I want to make the default location of these folders to be on /data, where the HDD is mounted instead of /home. (I don't want to change the /home location so my desktop stays in place.) Any ideas?
 


G'day @Blarnix and welcome to linux.org :)

Mind my timezone, I am east-coast Australia.

1. So is it the case that on the HDD you want something like, under /data

/data/Documents
/data/Downloads
/data/Music
/data/Pictures
/data/Public
/data/Videos

and so on?

2. Is Zorin OS 15 the sole OS on the rig, or are you dualbooting with Windows, and if so which version?

3. Are you a gamer, which usually requires some considerable space for storage?

4. How large/what capacity is the HDD?

These are just a few questions to get the ball rolling, for me or others to help.

And I would be advocating the installation of Timeshift and the taking of a snapshot before making any significant changes, so you can roll back if there is the need.

Cheers

Chris Turner
wizardfromoz

Avagudweegend
 
Like @wizardfromoz already asked, do you mean $HOME/{Pictures,Documents,Music,Videos..etc}? I think there are two solutions easiest for you, you can either not change the default and add the other locations under /data in your file manager(nautilus). Which you can do by click to the location of choice in your filemanager.
For example say you want to add /data/Pictures:
1. Open your file manager
2. Click on Other locations.
3 Click on data
4. Select Pictures and then drag under the location where Trash is, not exactly under Trash but just below the separator line since that's where the Favorite folder locations are stored. Then it will be added and then when you quickly want to open that location you can just click on the shortcut.

Or you can change it in your user settings which is this file: $HOME/.config/user-dirs.dirs and it contains these lines.
Code:
XDG_DESKTOP_DIR="$HOME/Desktop"
XDG_DOWNLOAD_DIR="$HOME/Downloads"
XDG_TEMPLATES_DIR="$HOME/Templates"
XDG_PUBLICSHARE_DIR="$HOME/Public"
XDG_DOCUMENTS_DIR="$HOME/Documents"
XDG_MUSIC_DIR="$HOME/Music"
XDG_PICTURES_DIR="$HOME/Pictures"
XDG_VIDEOS_DIR="$HOME/Videos"
You can then edit it to look like this.
Code:
XDG_DESKTOP_DIR="/data/Desktop"
XDG_DOWNLOAD_DIR="/data/Downloads"
XDG_TEMPLATES_DIR="/data/Templates"
XDG_PUBLICSHARE_DIR="/data/Public"
XDG_DOCUMENTS_DIR="/data/Documents"
XDG_MUSIC_DIR="/data/Music"
XDG_PICTURES_DIR="/data/Pictures"
XDG_VIDEOS_DIR="/data/Videos"
Instead of using /data you can also make make it /data/$USERNAME/{Desktop,Downloads,Templates, Public,Documents,Music,Pictures,Videos} or however it fits your directory structure on /data.
 
Last edited:
LOL This is one of the topics on my 'to-do' list for site articles.
 
Hey everyone,
I'm new to ZorinOS 15 and Linux in general (being a Windows user since XP.) and I need to change my default folder locations in the title to my other HDD so as not to fill up my SSD. I want to make the default location of these folders to be on /data, where the HDD is mounted instead of /home. (I don't want to change the /home location so my desktop stays in place.) Any ideas?
/home is /home regardless of where it's mounted. If it's on an SSD it acts and contains the same as it would on an HDD.
 
John I think you may be missing what the OP is seeking to accomplish here.

But it may be better to wait and see if he comes back with answers to my questions from #2.

Cheers

Wizard
 
I don't disagree, but the OP statement: "(I don't want to change the /home location so my desktop stays in place.)" concerned me. I'm not sure what that could mean.

/home doesn't care where it is, only that it is mounted. By experience, I've had my /home on a different physical disk away from everything else. and in other instances I've had part of my /home on one disk and other /home sub-directories on completely different physical disks. All of them mounted by /etc/fstab declarations.

Just presenting facts. So many users are under the impression that /data is the only way to organize your stuff on a multi-disk system. It's an option, but not the only one. Using and referencing /home properly on a multi-disk system is a very simple way of ensuring that all of a user's personal and valuable data is completely backed up, regardless of its physical location.

I yield the floor to the Wiz :)
 
/home doesn't care where it is, only that it is mounted. By experience, I've had my /home on a different physical disk away from everything else. and in other instances I've had part of my /home on one disk and other /home sub-directories on completely different physical disks. All of them mounted by /etc/fstab declarations.

Quite so :)

I'm not sure what that could mean.

I believe he refers to preserving his Settings such as are stored in

~/.cache
~/.config
~/.<DE_name>
~/.local

and so on. And simply moving the space hogs to another point of reference.

One solution for him may be to move his entire $HOME to the HDD, and I have described a method for this recently to member Rafaelys, at the Thread

https://linux.org/threads/taking-better-advantage-of-ssd-hdd-config-in-installation.32965

and referencing this article

https://www.howtogeek.com/442101/how-to-move-your-linux-home-directory-to-another-hard-drive/

That article had an error in it which I have since been successful in getting How To Geek and the author to correct.

But until we can educe a bit more information from the OP, I would suggest that speculating on solutions may be premature, and confusing.

I am sure you agree.

Cheers

Wizard
 
Yes, I would agree that there are administrative things that must, from time to time, be done on a system to keep that system from choking on its own success. I've done it, others have done it, you've probably done it, too. Its simply the best way to go. Moving a fully grown /home to a new "home" is a truly simple and effective way to move on.

And the computer and its OS won't even care.
 

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