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New user.

Is there a way for me to change where my downloads and software get saved/installed?

For example like Spotify, OBS, Blender, VSCode. I don't want those saved to the same drive as my OS, but rather to another drive that I specifically formatted and partitioned for those things.

End Anti-Semitic Hate
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GreenFire
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  • It's not entirely clear what you're asking or perhaps you're asking a question that is too broad without understanding why it is too broad. If you're asking how to change where software is installed, I suggest you read about the file system hierarchy. The short answer is "No, you can't change where software is installed". If you want non system applications to save their files in a particular place, like in Firefox, or Blender, then most of these apps must be configured individually (just like you would on any other OS) – Nmath Jul 27 '22 at 04:15

2 Answers2

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~/.config$ more user-dirs.dirs

holds the defaults for all the directories created by the system for the user. I use a HDD mounted as /discworld to keep my SDD clean from user files:

# 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="/discworld/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="/discworld/Desktop"
XDG_DOWNLOAD_DIR="/discworld/Downloads"
XDG_TEMPLATES_DIR="/discworld/Templates"
XDG_PUBLICSHARE_DIR="/discworld/Public"
XDG_DOCUMENTS_DIR="/discworld/Documents"
XDG_MUSIC_DIR="/discworld/Music"
XDG_PICTURES_DIR="/discworld/Pictures"
XDG_VIDEOS_DIR="/discworld/Videos"

You can change only Dowloads to the new location and that will be used unless you set a download inside software itself. Like Firefox, Chrome all have a setting for downloads to override the default.

Rinzwind
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It's simple to change the download directory on Spotify. Just open Spotify, click your Avatar, and select Settings. Scroll down and find Offline Storage Location, click Change location, you can then browse and choose where to store the Spotify downloads.

Tips: If there's not enough storage on your device, you can use Sidify Music Converter to export Spotify songs as MP3 files to your local drive and then transfer them to an external hard drive.

Jan Doon
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