How do I change directories from the command line?

Question

I'm try to change to my Desktop directory from the terminal.

Running

cd /home/desktop

gives an error in the terminal saying no directory found.

What am I doing wrong?

Related: Downloaded a program to my home/downloads folder and can't access it — Eliah Kagan, Oct 12 '17 at 06:56

score 7 · Answer 1 · edited Oct 12 '17 at 05:59

7

iBelieve's answer covers almost everything, but alternatively you can type

cd ~/Desktop/

the ~/ stands for /home/$USER/ or $HOME/

edited Oct 12 '17 at 05:59

Zanna

70,465

answered Aug 20 '13 at 18:25

Akisame

3,313
7
32
63

2

+1 for mentioning the tilde-home shortcut. Although it stands for /home//. – Aaron Aug 20 '13 at 18:33
disappeared so I changed it to [username] – Akisame Aug 21 '13 at 13:06
Home also needs to be lowercase, and you can use html escapes to get the < and > symbols to appear (I edited to demonstrate) – Drake Clarris Aug 21 '13 at 13:13
1

You too: $USER is easier ;-) (it will automatically transform to the current user) – Rinzwind Aug 21 '13 at 15:06
Or $HOME too. – May 07 '16 at 12:56

score 5 · Answer 2 · edited Aug 21 '13 at 15:05

5

To answer your question mentioned in the quoted article:

The directory format is like this:

/
    home
        <username>
            Desktop
            Documents
            ...

so your command should be

cd /home/$USER/Desktop

To learn the directory structure, I'd suggest opening up the Home Folder app from the launcher on the left, and going to Computer and just exploring for a while. You won't be able to break anything outside of your home folder.

edited Aug 21 '13 at 15:05

Rinzwind

299,756

answered Aug 20 '13 at 17:13

iBelieve

5,384

2

$USER is easier ;-) (it will automatically transform to the current user) – Rinzwind Aug 21 '13 at 15:05

score 5 · Answer 3 · edited Oct 12 '17 at 05:09

Because I haven't seen it mentioned yet, it should be noted that all directory names in Ubuntu (Linux) are case-sensitive. So even if you were in your correct home directory, executing a cd desktop should and will fail. If you look at @iBelieve's post, you can see that the Desktop directory starts with a capital 'D'. To get there, you will need to specify the correct case.

cd Desktop

To help you in the future, take a look at this Ubuntu help wiki page on using the terminal.

score 1 · Answer 4 · answered Aug 27 '13 at 09:09

The following bash builtin commands are equivalent and they change the current working directory to your Desktop directory from your user home directory:

cd ~/Desktop               # my favorite

cd ~; cd Desktop

cd ~ && cd Desktop

cd $HOME/Desktop

cd /home/$USER/Desktop

cd /home/username/Desktop  # where 'username' is your user name

cd $CDPATH && cd Desktop

cd `locate -b '\Desktop'`

cd $(locate -b '\Desktop')

How do I change directories from the command line?

4 Answers4

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