xdg-ninja

You might like xdg-ninja‡ then, it tells you what program put which item in your $HOME and how to move it to ~/.config or $XDG_CONFIG_HOME. ‡: https://github.com/b3nj5m1n/xdg-ninja

I usually treat an app putting stuff into $HOME with no reason to change that as a reason to not use the app. I've genuinely switched software multiple times because of the old one doing this. I also suggest you try xdg-ninja, which automatically scans your home directory and shows which of those directories you can change to a different location: https://github.com/b3nj5m1n/xdg-ninja I have a big shell config file that sets proper locations for all sort of programs I use: https://github.com/flexagoon/dotfiles/blob/main/dot_config/f...

that's great! The ~/.mozilla folder is one of the last remaining dotfiles in my home directory $ ls -a ~ . .. .bashrc .mozilla .profile .ssh bak config local pro src You can also be an xdg ninja if you want: https://github.com/b3nj5m1n/xdg-ninja Annoyingly, many programs hardcode ~/.config and ~/.local (instead of using XDG_CONFIG_HOME etc) and try to recreate them every time they run. This is a good indication to stop using these careless programs!

You'd be interested in xdg-ninja: https://github.com/b3nj5m1n/xdg-ninja Like others said, fighting the clean HOME fight is just draining and futile in the end. This script helps you identify low hanging fruit, though, where you can change their storage location with a simple envvar.

FYI. There is a XDG checker called "xdg-ninja"[1] > A shell script that checks your $HOME for unwanted files and directories. > When xdg-ninja encounters a file or directory it knows about, it will tell you whether it's possible to move it to the appropriate location, and how to do it. 1. https://github.com/b3nj5m1n/xdg-ninja

> people still can't get used to .local/.share/.config I'm one of those people... I don't want yet more hidden stuff in my home dir; I want less. My dream is to have zero hidden directories in my home. What I want is something really clean like this: $ ls -a ~ . .. config fun local pro tmp This is almost possible, thanks to XDG_ environment variables. But unfortunately many programs still use hardcoded names for the local userdirs. If you want to get closer to that goal, the xdg-ninja [0] package can help you. Also, do something like "touch ~/.local ; chmod 000 ~/.local" to force programs that use hardcoded names to fail spectacularly (instead of recreating the hidden dir). [0] https://github.com/b3nj5m1n/xdg-ninja

To alleviate the issue with most applications dumping their files in your home directory, i found xdg-ninja[0] to be helpful. In short, it scans all your programs and determines if you can configure it to respect the xdg standards. It doesn't work for everything, but most applications do seem to have such an option. [0] https://github.com/b3nj5m1n/xdg-ninja

Regarding ~/.cargo (and other tools), I've had some success with following suggestions from https://github.com/b3nj5m1n/xdg-ninja

https://github.com/b3nj5m1n/xdg-ninja This utility has been a lifesaver to clean up my home directory.

To clean up your home-dir from .dotfiles, theres xdg-ninja [1] which assists you to make all your applications to follow the XDG specs. [1] https://github.com/b3nj5m1n/xdg-ninja

If anyone would like to actually force the non-compliant applications to do the thing correctly, then xdg-ninja is your friend [0]. The script looks at all the dotfiles in the home folder and tells you what environment variables you have to set to make them follow XDG base directory specifications, in the cases where that's not possible it will show you the related GitHub issue or similar bug tracking option with the problem. My current dotfiles [1] already have a lot of these and they mostly just work. Once in a while an application won't respect it completely, and so instead of having a mess with xdg + whatever the dev though was cooler I just let the application do it's thing so at least is somewhat predictable. [0]: https://github.com/b3nj5m1n/xdg-ninja [1]: https://github.com/DoodlesEpic/Dotfiles/blob/main/.profile

There are shell scripts like xdg-ninja that can help with this: https://github.com/b3nj5m1n/xdg-ninja