How to Keep Home Directory Clean?

I hate it when every program stores it's config and cache files in the home directory.

Have you ever felt that?

How do you deal with it?

# Run this in your home directory to count the number of files.
ls -la | wc -l

Comments

[Angad Sharma]

The number is 139 for me. This is primarily due to some programs not adhereing to the XDG_CONFIG standards and dumping their config files in the home directory.

All configuration files should be in the ~/.config directory. If only developers made programs that adhere to this guideline.

How do you suggest I manage the files dumped on my home dir due to this annoyance?

[Usama Subhani]

It's frustrating, how some developers completely ignore this standard.

For some programs, you can manually set config/cache directories in ~/.profile

For example, for zsh you can set ZDOTDIR

Not a general solution but better than nothing. I may write a post about it after some research.

[Angad Sharma]

That'd be great :)

[Vlastimil Pospichal]

81

No problem, 27 items are visible only.

[Usama Subhani]

Nice. I have seen setups with over 150.

Looks like I'm the only one who is bothered with it.

[Vlastimil Pospichal]

I have some directories with >2k source files. No problem.