5 ms·

Windows users use them, Mac users use them, hell even on a fresh profile in Gnome I use them... It is a little weird to see htem on a server OS install though

rgovostes 4y ago
They exist on macOS and Windows but I tend to agree that these directories are not particularly useful for users. Apple software tries to organize files but it's a disaster: iTunes used to download movies to ~/Music/iTunes/iTunes Media/Movies, now TV.app downloads them to ~/Movies/TV/Media/Movies (!), and videos I shoot on my iPhone end up in ~/Pictures.
- pdntspa 4y ago
  There has always been a tragedy of the commons with these folders, nobody can agree on where a lot of stuff goes. Should my game saves go in Documents? What about Documents/My Games/Publisher? What about %APPDATA%/Publisher? Hell there's even a few in ~/My Games. Every new game, figuring out where the save data went is an adventure and it's cluttered up every folder it touches. And now for whatever reason everyone is being pushed to put user data in %APPDATA%, which I don't consistently remember how to get to without that shortcut. So who knows! I just looked up the save data location for Subnautica and it is (I shit you not): %AppData%\..\LocalLow\Unknown Worlds\Subnautica\Subnautica\SavedGames
  - ablob 4y ago
    LocalLow is just %LocalAppData% for low privillege programs. The Roaming folder (%appdata%) is for platform independent data, and the LocalAppdata folder fo platform specific data. You can find the appdata folder in your userhome "C:Users\YourUserName\AppData", but it's hidden by default if you havent changed it. Edit: clarified what I mean by the Appdata folder
    - pdntspa 4y ago
      I am aware of that, those folders have existed as such since at least Windows XP. But only recently have I noticed consumer software placing fungible user data in there. IIRC at one point you couldn't even open one of the "AppData" homefolder aliases, Explorer would spit out some error message and you'd have to navigate to the hidden folder or key it in manually.
MichaelCollins 4y ago
> Windows users use them, Mac users use them, hell even on a fresh profile in Gnome I use them... Really, you use all of them? When you go on vacation and take some pictures and video of your family, do you then split those files between ~/Video/Beach2022/ and ~/Pictures/Beach2022? I've never seen anybody do this, not on Windows, MacOS, or any linux DE. Instead you get something like ~/Desktop/Beach2022 or ~/Downloads/vacations/Beach2022 or generally, a single directory anywhere (often on a USB harddrive, not their home directory at all), but never do those vacation files get split by filetype into ~/Videos and ~/Pictures, that seems like utter madness to me.
- klodolph 4y ago
  I think pictures + videos from vacation are the exception. I definitely use the ~/Movies ~/Pictures ~/Music (or ~/Videos) folders to hold those types of media. I do this on macOS, Linux, and Windows.
- pdntspa 4y ago
  Not exactly, but as I poke around those folders on my desktop PC, all of them hold various things. If I didn't have a NAS they'd hold a lot more stuff too.

rgovostes 4y ago

They exist on macOS and Windows but I tend to agree that these directories are not particularly useful for users. Apple software tries to organize files but it's a disaster: iTunes used to download movies to ~/Music/iTunes/iTunes Media/Movies, now TV.app downloads them to ~/Movies/TV/Media/Movies (!), and videos I shoot on my iPhone end up in ~/Pictures.

pdntspa 4y ago
There has always been a tragedy of the commons with these folders, nobody can agree on where a lot of stuff goes. Should my game saves go in Documents? What about Documents/My Games/Publisher? What about %APPDATA%/Publisher? Hell there's even a few in ~/My Games. Every new game, figuring out where the save data went is an adventure and it's cluttered up every folder it touches. And now for whatever reason everyone is being pushed to put user data in %APPDATA%, which I don't consistently remember how to get to without that shortcut. So who knows! I just looked up the save data location for Subnautica and it is (I shit you not): %AppData%\..\LocalLow\Unknown Worlds\Subnautica\Subnautica\SavedGames
- ablob 4y ago
  LocalLow is just %LocalAppData% for low privillege programs. The Roaming folder (%appdata%) is for platform independent data, and the LocalAppdata folder fo platform specific data. You can find the appdata folder in your userhome "C:Users\YourUserName\AppData", but it's hidden by default if you havent changed it. Edit: clarified what I mean by the Appdata folder
  - pdntspa 4y ago
    I am aware of that, those folders have existed as such since at least Windows XP. But only recently have I noticed consumer software placing fungible user data in there. IIRC at one point you couldn't even open one of the "AppData" homefolder aliases, Explorer would spit out some error message and you'd have to navigate to the hidden folder or key it in manually.

MichaelCollins 4y ago

> Windows users use them, Mac users use them, hell even on a fresh profile in Gnome I use them... Really, you use all of them? When you go on vacation and take some pictures and video of your family, do you then split those files between ~/Video/Beach2022/ and ~/Pictures/Beach2022? I've never seen anybody do this, not on Windows, MacOS, or any linux DE. Instead you get something like ~/Desktop/Beach2022 or ~/Downloads/vacations/Beach2022 or generally, a single directory anywhere (often on a USB harddrive, not their home directory at all), but never do those vacation files get split by filetype into ~/Videos and ~/Pictures, that seems like utter madness to me.

klodolph 4y ago
I think pictures + videos from vacation are the exception. I definitely use the ~/Movies ~/Pictures ~/Music (or ~/Videos) folders to hold those types of media. I do this on macOS, Linux, and Windows.
pdntspa 4y ago
Not exactly, but as I poke around those folders on my desktop PC, all of them hold various things. If I didn't have a NAS they'd hold a lot more stuff too.