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Adi Yono
Asked: 2015-07-04 05:47:02 +0800 CST

How to access Ubuntu ~ and . folder

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I have read many Questions and Answers here. In some of them there are directories that I cannot find on my computer, for example:

/home/username/.local/
~/.local/share/Steam

What is ~, what is folder start with ., and how I can access these folders?

directory

2 Answers

  1. Best Answer

    ~ is a special shell replacement. It's replaced with your home directory (typically /home/$USER but not neccessarily). It's a shortcut we use because it's nice and short and it's impossible to know everybody's $HOME.

    Files and directories prepended with a dot are hidden. In Windows it's a boolean setting on files, in Unix it's based on the filename. You can still access them though:

    • In Ubuntu's default file browser you can:
      • Toggle the display of hidden files
      • Use the address bar to manually go to the path (Control + L to toggle raw address mode).
      • Use a run dialogue (Alt+F2) to run nautilus <full path>
    • In a terminal you can cd directly to the path.
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  2. ~ is for accessing your home directory , if you type cd ~ you will reach your home directory.

    For example you want to go to Music directory from any directory just type:

    cd ~/Music

    If a directory name starts with dot . it means that is hidden however you can access it from cd .foldername, also there are other uses of dot like:

    1) cd . u remain in the same folder where you are before entering this command

    2) cd .. go to previous folder from the current folder NOTE : Folder and Directory are used interchangeably

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