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I am making a script and I am looking for a way to get the variable names for Desktop, Music, Documents, Pictures and others Folders. Depending on the language they change. For example Desktop in Spanish is Escritorio. So how can I get the folder directory without needing to find out what language the user is using or having to make several IF statements for each language.

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The common folder names are as follows. Just extracted from a file in home directory.

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="$HOME/"
XDG_VIDEOS_DIR="$HOME/Videos"

Of course, you are only interested in the variable name. So there are XDG_DESKTOP_DIR, XDG_DOWNLOAD_DIR, .... etc.

Related question: How can I change the default location of content directories (eg Pictures, Templates, Music) in my home folder?

Hope this will help.

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Wow!. Thanks Anwar. Nice list. I got a little problem testing it. Doing echo on any of the variables throws nothing. I found the information in ~/.config//user-dirs.dirs but still the variables are empty. – Luis Alvarado♦ Sep 28 '12 at 18:10
same here, i also don't see those variables in terminal (at least not by default). localized folder names drive me absolutely crazy. – kritzikratzi Oct 9 '12 at 18:14
@LuisAlvarado @ritzikratzi the default method to change these variables in change in ~/.config/user-dirs.dirs file. and I think these variables aren't available from terminal – Anwar Oct 10 '12 at 2:56

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