Ubuntu desktop file location

First open file browser and navigate to Other Locations > Computer > usr > share > applications. The shortcut files of most installed applications are there. Open a new file browser window, and navigate to Desktop folder. Now drag and drop desired applications’ .

How do I create a desktop shortcut in Ubuntu?

To create a desktop shortcut:

  1. Open the File Manager.
  2. Click on “+ Other Locations -> Computer” and navigate to “/usr/share/applications.” You will find many files with the “. desktop” extension.
  3. Scroll down the list to find the application you want to place on Desktop. Right click and select “Copy.”
  4. Paste to the Desktop.

How do I create a shortcut in Linux?

Create Symlink in Linux

To create a symlink without a terminal, just hold Shift+Ctrl and drag the file or folder you want to link to to the location where you want the shortcut. This method may not work with all desktop managers.

How do I add icons to pop OS desktop?

You need to install gnome-tweaks , then go under: Extensions > Desktop Icons . Check the icons you want displayed on your desktop. I wonder if it’s something inherited from gnome 19.04, rather than something specific to popos.

How do I create a desktop entry?

Go to /usr/share/applications , copy the desktop file of the application which you want to add, to your home’s Desktop folder ( ~/Desktop ). You will find the file added to the desktop. Then, right-click on the file and click on Allow launching. After that, you can double-click on the icon to launch the application.

Psssst:  How do I enable in app purchases iOS?

How do I create a desktop launcher in Linux?

The Easy Way

  1. Right-click unused space in any panel (the toolbars at the top and/or bottom of the screen)
  2. Choose Add To Panel…
  3. Choose Custom Application Launcher.
  4. Fill in Name, Command, and Comment. …
  5. Click the No Icon button to select an icon for your launcher. …
  6. Click OK.
  7. Your launcher should now appear on the panel.

How do you make an Appimage shortcut?

Re: SOLVED How to create “shortcuts” to an Appimage ?

  1. Right-click on menu and select “Configure”
  2. Select “Menu Editor”
  3. Select the category, then click “New Item” and create the shortcut link.

Are there shortcuts in Linux?

In the Linux world, shortcuts do exist, but they’re generally referred to as symbolic links, or symlinks. They are so named because, like shortcuts, a symlink is really just a symbolic placeholder or link to the file or directory you’re trying to get at.

How do I create a shortcut in terminal?

Type in Terminal and launch it. Once your in the Terminal, type ls -a to be given a list of files and folders that are both hidden and not hidden. We are looking for the hidden file . bash_profile , for instance, to open and write into in order to create customized shortcut commands for your daily usage.

How do I install tweaks?

Gnome Tweaks tool installation on Ubuntu 20.04 LTS

  1. Step 1: Open Command terminal of Ubuntu. …
  2. Step 2: Run Update command with sudo rights. …
  3. Step 3: Command to install Gnome Tweaks. …
  4. Step 4: Run the Tweaks tool. …
  5. Step 5: Gnome Tweaks Appearance.

Psssst:  How do I open a PDF in Acrobat instead of the browser Windows 10?

What is pop OS based on?

Pop!_ OS is an Ubuntu-based Linux distribution featuring a custom GNOME desktop. Pop!_

A .desktop file is simply a shortcut that is used to launch application in Linux. Without the .desktop file, your application won’t show up in the Applications menu and you can’t launch it with third-party launchers such as Synapse and Albert.

Most applications, when installed, will create the .desktop file automatically and place themselves in the Application menu for quick access. However, if you compile a program from source or download an app in archive format, this may not be the case and you may have to open the terminal to execute the binary every time you want to use it. Obviously, this can become a very tedious and troublesome step.

This article will describe how you can create a .desktop file for any application you use that you can launch from the Application menu.

How to create Desktop launchers

A “.desktop” file is basically a simple text file that holds information about a program. It is usually placed in “~/.local/share/applications” or “/usr/share/applications/” depending whether you want the launcher to be accessible only for local account or for everyone. If you navigate to either directory in your File manager, you will see quite a few “.desktop” files that correspond to the installed apps on your computer.

For demonstration purposes, I will create a .desktop file for Super Tux Kart, a kart racing game which I like to play sometimes. A version is available in the Ubuntu repos, but this is often behind the latest stable version.

The only way to get the latest and greatest release is by downloading a tar archive, extracting it and executing a file which will launch the game.

You can follow along with whatever program you want to create a launcher for and it should work the same way.

Note: The following steps assume you have the archive for the program you want to create a launcher for in your “Downloads” folder.

1. Navigate to the directory where the archive is stored, right-click it and select “Extract here”.

Ubuntu desktop file location

2. Once the extraction is complete, Change to the newly created folder and find the executable. One you find it, right-click it click “Run” to launch the program, just to make sure it is working.

Ubuntu desktop file location

3. In some cases, you won’t see the “Run” option in the menu. This is often because the executable is a text file. You can get around this by executing it via the terminal or, if you use GNOME, click the Files menu in the top bar, and select “Preferences”.

Ubuntu desktop file location

4. Select the “Behavior” tab and choose the “Run them” option under “Executable Text Files”. Now the “Run” option should appear when you right-click the executable text file.

Ubuntu desktop file location

5. If you’ve confirmed that the application works when you launch it, you can exit it. Then launch your text editor and paste the following into the empty text file:

You need to change the “Exec” field to the path to the executable and “Name” field to the name of the application. Most programs would provide an icon somewhere in the archive so don’t forget to include that as well. In my case, the launcher file for Super Tux Kart looks like this:

Ubuntu desktop file location

6. Save the file in “~/.local/share/applications” folder as “application-name.desktop”. The “.local” folder is a hidden folder in your Home directory and you will have enable “Show Hidden Files” mode to view it. If you want it to be globally accessible, run the following command in the terminal:

Of course, don’t forget to change the <application-name.desktop> to the actual name of the .desktop file.

7. Once done, just open the Applications menu on your desktop, and the application will be right there to use.

Ubuntu desktop file location

The method described here should work on all mainstream Linux based operating systems. Here’s another screenshot showing Super Tux Kart in elementary OS’s application launcher (slingshot)

Ubuntu desktop file location

Feel free to leave a comment below if you found this tutorial helpful.