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Tigull
Asked: 2011-05-08 00:16:03 +0800 CST

Where are the Unity Launcher .desktop files?

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I'd like to know which folder the Unity Launcher .desktop files are stored in, as they're not anymore in /.gconf/desktop and I need to add a custom application to the launcher bar (adding it in /usr/share/applications doesn't seem to be enough).

Where are the Unity Launcher .desktop files?

unity

6 Answers

  1. Best Answer

    Globally in 

    /usr/share/applications

    Locally in 

    ~/.local/share/applications

    If you want to add a custom launcher, create it in ~/.local/share/applications, make it executable, drag and drop it on the launcher*, and finally pin it (right-click on the launcher item → Keep In Launcher).

    * Opening it using Nautilus doesn't seem to do the trick.

    • 199

  2. Unity 2D looks for .desktop files in the /usr/share/applications directory. This can be found by using the following in the Terminal:

    locate firefox.desktop

    For me it worked by adding one of the launchers that was already there (eg. gimp.desktop) using the following in the Terminal

    gconf-editor

    to add an entry to the favorites list under desktop/unity-2d/launcher.

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  3. This question was posted almost 9 years ago, but it still appears on top of searches on this topic. For completeness, since Snaps are now a thing, there are at least 4 locations:

    Globally:

    /usr/share/applications

    /usr/local/share/applications/ (less common)

    Locally:

    ~/.local/share/applications

    Snaps:

    /var/lib/snapd/desktop/applications
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  4. cd ~/.local/share/applications is the 1st place that is look in.

    Examples from my directory that I used to add quicklists:

    ~/.local/share/applications$ ls
banshee.desktop           gnome-terminal.desktop
chromium-browser.desktop  mimeapps.list
firefox.desktop           nautilus-home.desktop
gedit.desktop             ubuntu-software-center.desktop
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  5. Besides globally in /usr/share/applications, locally in ~/.local/share/applications, it also has in /usr/local/share/applications/. It has similar effects as globally. Some applications choose to put their desktop file in this folder.

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  6. I actually found a fix myself! It is necessary to create an entry in alacarte. To customise the icon you must manually edit the icon again from alacarte.

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