Change path of desktop I would like to change the path that my desktop shows so instead of having a bunch of files that are in my desktop folder it shows the files in another folder. My desktop folder has files in it, so deleting that and symlinking the other folder won't work.

How can I change the folder the desktop displays?
The folder with the name Desktop in your user folder is a "blessed" folder. The content of this folder is shown on your GUI desktop.

To show the content of a different folder on your GUI desktop you'd have to rename the folder Desktop to an unused name and rename another folder to Desktop:

sudo mv ~/Desktop ~/myOldDesktop &amp;&amp; sudo mv ~/myNewDesktop ~/Desktop


You may encounter graphical issues with the file and folder names on your "new" desktop afterwards.

It is not advisable to "enhance" another default user folder like Pictures or Documents like this.



If you have to organize your workflow (or your files and folders) like this, your workflow or your notion of the desktop metaphor is broken. That's like moving around work desks rather than files in an office.