Your ~/.config/user-dirs.dirs
file has some incorrect settings, in particular you have lost the correct setting for 'DESKTOP'. Possibly others have been changed as well and may need some editing, (the contents of your ~/.config/user-dirs.dirs
file will reveal this).
My own ~/.config/user-dirs.dirs
file is as follows:
andrew@ithaca:~$ cat ~/.config/user-dirs.dirs
# 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="$HOME/Downloads"
XDG_TEMPLATES_DIR="$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="$HOME/Videos"
andrew@ithaca:~$
You can certainly edit the file directly as is suggested above but another way to correct the missing entries in your own file is to run the following commands one after the other from a Terminal window:
xdg-user-dirs-update --set DESKTOP "$HOME/Desktop"
xdg-user-dirs-update --set DOWNLOAD "$HOME/Downloads"
xdg-user-dirs-update --set TEMPLATES "$HOME/Templates"
xdg-user-dirs-update --set DOCUMENTS "$HOME/Documents"
xdg-user-dirs-update --set PICTURES "$HOME/Pictures"
xdg-user-dirs-update --set VIDEOS "$HOME/Videos"
Then logout and subsequently login or simply reboot, and all should be well. For reference here are all of the values that can be manipulated in this way:
DESKTOP
DOWNLOAD
TEMPLATES
PUBLICSHARE
DOCUMENTS
MUSIC
PICTURES
VIDEOS
The commands I have given you should return you to the defaults, and to remove the $HOME icon from the Desktop:
gsettings set org.gnome.nautilus.desktop home-icon-visible false
References:
Best Answer
Your
user-dirs.dirs
folder is messed up, but it's easy to fix it. Open the terminal and run:If you don't want to use
nano
you can use your favorite text editor, e.g.gedit
.In
user-dirs.dirs
you should have some entries similar to the following:I suppose that in your case your
XDG_DESKTOP_DIR
entry is justXDG_DESKTOP_DIR="$HOME/"
. This means that it points to your home directory and that's why you have your home directory "duplicated" on your Desktop. Probably the rest of the entries are messed up too.Change this entry, along with the rest of them, so they point to the correct locations, as shown above. Save the file and restart your computer for the changes to take effect.
Edit
You have to create the Desktop directory first, since you don't have one. To create it run: