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I have just discovered that I cant open my documents folder. It is no longer in the bookmarks list in the file manager, but at the end of the list and when I click on it...it says the following:

enter image description here

I assume this has happened after the upgrade which I did 2 days ago, and since then I havent used this folder. I was just looking for it now and it was not where it used to be..plus it has become inaccessible. Any ideas why and how to recover my documents? or the entire folder the way it used to be?

Would it be a good idea to uninstall and then install the file manager simply from the software center?

New image of showing that I cant really add it back where it should be enter image description here

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  • And if you go into Terminal and run ls -al ~, is your Documents directory there? And if so, what is the output for it?
    – user364819
    Dec 5, 2015 at 10:26
  • @ParanoidPanda hi there. Nah....it is missing. Really weird. But it is actually present in the file manager (but just the invalid shortcut). Is there a change log that could tell me what has gone wrong or something?
    – Elysium
    Dec 5, 2015 at 11:26

1 Answer 1

Reset to default
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Maybe do a search for it? 

find ~/ -type d -name "Documents"

This will search from your $HOME (~/) folder and up. d means look for folders. If that doesn't work try replacing d with f to look for a file if it somehow got compressed.

If you are able to find the folder and have restored it to the correct place you should be able to edit your config to show in Nautilus again. 

gedit ~/.config/user-dirs.dirs

And add the files you want, eg.

# 
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"

This will place the folder under the Places tab in Nautilus.

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  • this is weird. It got deleted. No clue how. I have restored it but it wont appear in the normal bookmarks and the system wont let me copy it back. It appears at the bottom of the right hand side list as if it were some regular folder. What can I do to totally restore it?
    – Elysium
    Dec 5, 2015 at 20:13
  • If you want to add a folder to your bookmarks on the left of Nautilus you can press ctrl + D which will allow you to edit your bookmarks. And you should be able to restore you Documents folder by copying it into your $HOME folder where it belongs. Hope this has helped!
    – user127494
    Dec 5, 2015 at 20:27
  • I'll add a new screenshot (see as part of the original post). ctrl+d or manually adding it wont work because the adding option is grayed out. Plus it looks like it is already there, but not at the right position. Weird. Really.
    – Elysium
    Dec 5, 2015 at 21:09
  • Try editing this folder ... gedit ~/.config/user-dirs.dirs
    – user127494
    Dec 5, 2015 at 21:19
  • ok. Done. The line where it said "documents"...was simple saying "home"...wasnt saying "home/Documents". I guess simply because I accidentally deleted it and it got all messed up. Accepted your answer. Cheers. By the way.....where did you learn all these command lines? Or do you copy them from some place when you need them?
    – Elysium
    Dec 5, 2015 at 21:29

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