Rename default user directories

Question

Is it possible to rename default directories like ~/Documents, ~/Music, ~/Videos?

Especially I want to rename Videos to Movies.

Thanks in advance!

Answer 1

Yes, the default home folders are defined in .config/user-dirs.dirs, which is a hidden configuration file, and you can open it with gedit .config/user-dirs.dirs. It looks like this, which is, hopefully, self-explanitory:

# 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="$HOME/Downloads"
XDG_PUBLICSHARE_DIR="$HOME/Public"
XDG_DOCUMENTS_DIR="$HOME/Documents"
XDG_MUSIC_DIR="$HOME/Music"
XDG_PICTURES_DIR="$HOME/Pictures"
XDG_VIDEOS_DIR="$HOME/Videos"
XDG_TEMPLATES_DIR="$HOME/Templates"

Answer 2

As I remember, Nautilus updates user directories if you simply rename them via the file manager. So I think right-clicking on the directory and choosing "Rename" from the menu should do the trick - just rename Videos to Movies in the file manager, it will remember the change.