Hello old new “Projects” directory

A tiny folder has quietly popped up in some Linux home directories — “Projects” is now enabled by default in xdg-user-dirs 0.20. If you’re on a very fresh install or a rolling-release upgrade, you might have noticed it this week. Why the change? Support for Projects has existed since 2007, but the 0.20 release finally flips the switch, closing an over‑11‑year‑old bug request and nudging desktops toward a more project-centric home layout.

What changed and why it matters

The Projects directory is meant for mixed-media, project-centric files that don’t belong in Documents, Pictures, Music or Videos — think software repos, scientific datasets, 3D print jobs, CAD files, or video-editing projects (the rendered footage can still live in Videos). The goal is simple: give apps a sane default place to put project files instead of dumping them into your home folder or cluttering Documents. Down the road, maintainers expect GLib, Flatpak, desktops and apps to adopt the new default, so the change is more than cosmetic — it’s an infrastructure nudge toward tidier storage.

Control, security and the release notes

Not a fan? It has been reported that some users don’t like the surprise. Fine — you’re in control. Delete the Projects folder and xdg-user-dirs won’t recreate it; you can also edit ~/.config/user-dirs.dirs to set your personal layout. System administrators and distro vendors can set site-wide defaults in /etc/xdg/user-dirs.defaults. The 0.20 release also modernizes the project: Meson replaces Automake, translations were updated, and the old shell script was replaced with a C binary, addressing an “arbitrary code execution from unsanitized input” issue called out by the Arch Linux Wiki.

This is a small change with potentially visible effects. For users it’s a nudge toward less clutter — a bit of home-directory spring cleaning, if you will. For apps and distros it’s a signal: project-centric workflows deserve first‑class placement. Expect the folder to become more commonplace as tooling catches up — and yes, if you don’t want it, one delete and a config tweak is all it takes.

Sources: blog.tenstral.net, Lobsters