A home directory is a file system directory on a

multi-user Multi-user software is computer software that allows access by multiple users of a computer. Time-sharing systems are multi-user systems. Most batch processing systems for mainframe computers may also be considered "multi-user", to avoid leavi ...

operating system An operating system (OS) is system software that manages computer hardware and software resources, and provides common daemon (computing), services for computer programs. Time-sharing operating systems scheduler (computing), schedule tasks for ...

containing files for a given

user Ancient Egyptian roles * User (ancient Egyptian official), an ancient Egyptian nomarch (governor) of the Eighth Dynasty * Useramen, an ancient Egyptian vizier also called "User" Other uses * User (computing), a person (or software) using an ...

of the system. The specifics of the home directory (such as its name and location) are defined by the operating system involved; for example,

Linux Linux ( ) is a family of open source Unix-like operating systems based on the Linux kernel, an kernel (operating system), operating system kernel first released on September 17, 1991, by Linus Torvalds. Linux is typically package manager, pac ...

BSD The Berkeley Software Distribution (BSD), also known as Berkeley Unix or BSD Unix, is a discontinued Unix operating system developed and distributed by the Computer Systems Research Group (CSRG) at the University of California, Berkeley, beginni ...

( FHS) systems use /home/ or /usr/home/,

macOS macOS, previously OS X and originally Mac OS X, is a Unix, Unix-based operating system developed and marketed by Apple Inc., Apple since 2001. It is the current operating system for Apple's Mac (computer), Mac computers. With ...

uses /Users/, and

Windows Windows is a Product lining, product line of Proprietary software, proprietary graphical user interface, graphical operating systems developed and marketed by Microsoft. It is grouped into families and subfamilies that cater to particular sec ...

systems since

Windows Vista Windows Vista is a major release of the Windows NT operating system developed by Microsoft. It was the direct successor to Windows XP, released five years earlier, which was then the longest time span between successive releases of Microsoft W ...

use \Users\.

Description

A user's home directory is intended to contain that user's files; including text documents, music, pictures, videos, etc. It may also include their

configuration file A configuration file, a.k.a. config file, is a computer file, file that stores computer data, data used to configure a software system such as an application software, application, a server (computing), server or an operating system. Some applic ...

s of preferred settings for any software they have used there and might have tailored to their liking:

web browser A web browser, often shortened to browser, is an application for accessing websites. When a user requests a web page from a particular website, the browser retrieves its files from a web server and then displays the page on the user's scr ...

bookmarks, favorite

desktop A desktop traditionally refers to: * The surface of a desk (often to distinguish office appliances that fit on a desk, such as photocopiers and printers, from larger equipment covering its own area on the floor) Desktop may refer to various compu ...

wallpaper Wallpaper is used in interior decoration to cover the interior walls of domestic and public buildings. It is usually sold in rolls and is applied onto a wall using wallpaper paste. Wallpapers can come plain as "lining paper" to help cover uneve ...

and themes, stored

password A password, sometimes called a passcode, is secret data, typically a string of characters, usually used to confirm a user's identity. Traditionally, passwords were expected to be memorized, but the large number of password-protected services t ...

s to any external services accessed via a given software, etc. The user can install executable software in this directory, but it will only be available to users with permission to execute files in this directory. The home directory can be organized further with the use of sub-directories. The content of a user's home directory is protected by

file-system permissions Typically, a file system maintains permission settings for each stored item commonly computer file, files and directory (computer), directories that either grant or deny the ability to manipulate file system items. Often the settings allow cont ...

, and by default is accessible to all authenticated users and administrators. Any other user that has been granted administrator privileges has authority to access any protected location on the file system including other users' home directories.

Benefits

Separating user data from system-wide data avoids redundancy (the same system files can be used by between different users) and makes backups of files that are important for a specific user simpler. Furthermore, Trojan horses,

viruses A virus is a submicroscopic infectious agent that replicates only inside the living cells of an organism. Viruses infect all life forms, from animals and plants to microorganisms, including bacteria and archaea. Viruses are found in almo ...

, and

worms The World Register of Marine Species (WoRMS) is a taxonomic database that aims to provide an authoritative and comprehensive catalogue and list of names of marine organisms. Content The content of the registry is edited and maintained by scien ...

running under the user's name and with their privileges will in most cases only be able to alter the files in the user's home directory, and perhaps some files belonging to workgroups the user is a part of, but not actual system files, reducing the chances of harming the functioning of the operating system.

Location

Subdirectories

The file on many Linux systems defines the subdirectories created for users by default. Creation is normally done with the first login by Xdg-user-dirs, a tool to help manage "well known" user directories like ''desktop'', ''downloads'', ''documents'', ''pictures'', ''videos'', or ''music''. The tool is also capable of localization (i.e. translation) of the folders' names.

Other features

Unix

In Unix, the

working directory In computing, the working directory of a process is a directory of a hierarchical file system, if any, dynamically associated with the process. It is sometimes called the current working directory (CWD), e.g. the BSD getcwd function, or just c ...

is automatically set to a user's home directory when they log in. In many built-in commands, typing the (

tilde The tilde (, also ) is a grapheme or with a number of uses. The name of the character came into English from Spanish , which in turn came from the Latin , meaning 'title' or 'superscription'. Its primary use is as a diacritic (accent) in ...

) character is equivalent to specifying the current user's home directory. The Unix

superuser In computing, the superuser is a special user account used for system administration. Depending on the operating system (OS), the actual name of this account might be root, administrator, admin or supervisor. In some cases, the actual name of the ...

has access to all directories on the file system, and hence can access home directories of all users. The superuser's home directory on older systems was , but on many newer systems it is located at (Linux, BSD), or (

VMS

In the

OpenVMS OpenVMS, often referred to as just VMS, is a multi-user, multiprocessing and virtual memory-based operating system. It is designed to support time-sharing, batch processing, transaction processing and workstation applications. Customers using Op ...

operating system, a user's home directory is called the ''root directory'', and the equivalent of a Unix/DOS/Windows/AmigaOS ''root directory'' is referred to as the ''Master File Directory''.

Single-user operating systems

Single-user operating systems simply have a single directory or partition for all user files, there is no individual directory setup per user (though users can still setup and maintain directories inside this main working directory manually). *

AmigaOS AmigaOS is a family of proprietary native operating systems of the Amiga and AmigaOne personal computers. It was developed first by Commodore International and introduced with the launch of the first Amiga, the Amiga 1000, in 1985. Early versions ...

versions 2 and up have "System" and "Work" partitions on hard disks by default. * BeOS (and its successors) have a /home directory which contains the files belonging to the single user of the system. * Versions of Windows prior

Windows 95 Windows 95 is a consumer-oriented operating system developed by Microsoft and the first of its Windows 9x family of operating systems, released to manufacturing on July 14, 1995, and generally to retail on August 24, 1995. Windows 95 merged ...

OEM Service Release 2 did not have a user folder but, since that release, became in-effect the single user's home directory. *

NeXTSTEP NeXTSTEP is a discontinued object-oriented, multitasking operating system based on the Mach kernel and the UNIX-derived BSD. It was developed by NeXT, founded by Steve Jobs, in the late 1980s and early 1990s and was initially used for its ...

and

OPENSTEP OpenStep is an object-oriented application programming interface (API) specification developed by NeXT. It provides a framework for building graphical user interfaces (GUIs) and developing software applications. OpenStep was designed to be plat ...

in a single-user, non-networked setup, is used, as well as when logged in as superuser.

References

{{Reflist Computer file systems File system directories