Table of Contents
Exec parameter variablesLegacy-Mixed Encoding (Deprecated)Both the KDE and GNOME desktop environments have adopted a similar format for "desktop entries", or configuration files describing how a particular program is to be launched, how it appears in menus, etc. It is to the larger community's benefit that a unified standard be agreed upon by all parties such that interoperation between the two environments, and indeed any additional environments that implement the specification, becomes simpler.
      These desktop entry files should have the extension
      .desktop. Determining file type on basis of
      extension makes determining the file type very easy and quick.
      When no file extension is present, the desktop system should
      fall back to recognition via "magic detection".  Desktop entries
      which describe how a directory is to be formatted/displayed
      should be simply called .directory.
    
Desktop entry files are encoded as lines of 8-bit characters separated by LF characters. Case is significant everywhere in the file.
Compliant implementations MUST not remove any fields from the file, even if they don't support them. Such fields must be maintained in a list somewhere, and if the file is "rewritten", they will be included. This ensures that any desktop-specific extensions will be preserved even if another system accesses and changes the file.
      Lines beginning with a # and blank lines are
      considered comments and will be ignored, however they should be
      preserved across reads and writes of the desktop entry file.
    
Comment lines are uninterpreted and may contain any character (except for LF). However, using UTF-8 for comment lines that contain characters not in ASCII is encouraged.
	A group header with name groupname is a line in the
	format:
      
[groupname]
	Group names may contain all ASCII characters except for
	[ and ] and control characters.
      
	All {key,value} pairs following a group header until
	a new group header belong to the group.
      
	The basic format of the desktop entry file requires that there be
	a group header named Desktop Entry.  There may
	be other groups present in the file, but this is the most
	important group which explicitly needs to be supported.  This
	group should also be used as the "magic key" for automatic MIME
	type detection.  There should be nothing preceding this group in
	the desktop entry file but possibly one or more comments.
      
      The value types recognized are string,
      localestring, regexp,
      boolean, and
      numeric.
    
	 Values of type string may contain all ASCII
	 characters except for control characters.
       
	 Values of type localestring are user displayable,
	 and are encoded in UTF-8.
       
	  Values of type boolean must either be the string
	  true or false.
       
	  Values of type numeric must be a valid floating
	  point number as recognized by the %f specifier for
	  scanf.
       
      The escape sequences \s, \n,
      \t, \r, and
      \\ are supported for values of type
      string and localestring, meaning
      ASCII space, newline, tab, carriage return, and backslash, respectively.
    
      Some keys can have multiple values. In such a case, the value of the key
      is specified as a plural: for example, string(s). The
      multiple values should be separated by a semicolon.  Those keys which
      have several values should have a semicolon as the trailing character.
      Semicolons in these values need to be escaped using
      \;.
    
	  Keys  with type localestring may be postfixed by
	  [LOCALE],
	  where LOCALE is the locale type of the
	  entry.  LOCALE must be of the form
	  lang_COUNTRY.ENCODING@MODIFIER_,
	  COUNTRY., 
	  and ENCODING@
	  may be omitted. If a postfixed key occurs, the same
	  key must be also present without the postfix.
    MODIFIER
      When reading in the desktop entry file, the value of the key is
      selected by matching the current POSIX locale for the
      LC_MESSAGES category against the
      LOCALE postfixes of all occurrences
      of the key, with the
      . part
      stripped.
    ENCODING
	  The matching of is done as follows.  If
	  LC_MESSAGES is of the form
	  lang_COUNTRY.ENCODING@MODIFIERlang_COUNTRY@MODIFIERlang_COUNTRYlang@MODIFIERlang by itself
	  will be attempted.  Finally, if no matching key is found the
	  required key without a locale specified is used.  The encoding
	  from the LC_MESSAGES value is ignored
	  when matching.
    
      If LC_MESSAGES does not have a MODIFIER
      field, then no key with a modifier will be matched.  Similarly, if
      LC_MESSAGES does not have a COUNTRY
      field, then no key with a country specified will be matched.  If
      LC_MESSAGES just has a lang field, then
      it will do a straight match to a key with a similar value.  The
      following table lists possible matches of various LC_MESSAGES values in
      the order in which they are matched.  Note that the
      ENCODING field isn't shown.
    
Table 1. Locale Matching
| LC_MESSAGESvalue | Possible keys in order of matching | 
|---|---|
|  | ,,,,
      default value | 
|  | ,lang,
      default value | 
|  | ,lang,
      default value | 
| lang | lang,
      default value | 
      For example, if the current value of the LC_MESSAGES category
      is sr_YU@Latn and the desktop file includes:
    
Name=Foo Name[sr_YU]=... Name[sr@Latn]=... Name[sr]=...
      then the value of the Name keyed by sr_YU is used.
    
Keys are either OPTIONAL or REQUIRED. If a key is OPTIONAL it may or may not be present in the file. However, if it isn't, the implementation of the standard should not blow up, it must provide some sane defaults. Additionally, keys either MUST or MAY be supported by a particular implementation.
Some keys only make sense in the context when another particular key is also present.
      Some example keys: Name[C], Comment[it].
    
Table 2. Standard Keys
| Key | Description | Value Type | REQ? | MUST? | Type | 
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Type | There are 4 types of desktop entries: Application(type 1),Link(type 2),FSDevice(type 3) andDirectory(type 4). | string | YES | YES | |
| Version | Version of Desktop Entry Specification (While the version field is not required to be present, it should be in all newer implementations of the Desktop Entry Specification. If the version number is not present, a "pre-standard" desktop entry file is to be assumed). | numeric | NO | YES | 1-4 | 
| Name | Specific name of the application, for example "Mozilla". | localestring | YES | YES | 1-4 | 
| GenericName | Generic name of the application, for example "Web Browser". | localestring | NO | YES | 1-4 | 
| NoDisplay | NoDisplaymeans "this application exists, but don't display it in the menus".
		  This can be useful to e.g. associate this application with MIME types, so that
		  it gets launched from a file manager (or other apps), without having a menu
		  entry for it (there are tons of good reasons for this, including e.g. thenetscape -remote, orkfmclient openURLkind of stuff). | boolean | NO | NO | 1-4 | 
| Comment | Tooltip for the entry, for example "View sites on the
           Internet", should not be redundant with NameorGenericName. | localestring | NO | YES | 1-4 | 
| Icon | Icon to display in file manager, menus, etc. If the name is an absolute path, the given file will be used. If the name is not an absolute path, an implementation-dependent search algorithm will be used to locate the icon. | localestring | NO | YES | 1-4 | 
| Hidden | Hiddenshould have been calledDeleted.
		  It means the user deleted (at his level)
		  something that was present (at an upper level, e.g. in the system dirs). It's
		  strictly equivalent to the.desktopfile not existing at all, as far as that user is
		  concerned. This can also be used to "uninstall" existing files (e.g. due to a renaming)
		  - by lettingmake installinstall a file withHidden=truein it. | boolean | NO | NO | 1-4 | 
| OnlyShowIn,NotShowIn | A list of strings identifying the environments that should
           display/not display a given desktop entry. Only one of
           these keys, either OnlyShowInorNotShowIn, may appear in a group (for
           possible values see the Desktop
           Menu Specification). | string(s) | NO | NO | 1-4 | 
| FilePattern | A list of regular expressions to match against for a file manager to determine if this entry's icon should be displayed. Usually simply the name of the main executable and friends. | regexp(s) | NO | NO | 1 | 
| TryExec | File name of a binary on disk used to determine if the program is actually installed. If not, entry may not show in menus, etc. | string | NO | NO | 1 | 
| Exec | Program to execute, possibly with arguments. | string | NO | YES | 1 | 
| Path | If entry is of type Application, the working directory to run the program in. | string | NO | YES | 1 | 
| Terminal | Whether the program runs in a terminal window. | boolean | NO | YES | 1 | 
| Actions | Additional actions possible, see MIME type discussion in the section called “Registering MIME Types”. | string(s) | NO | YES | 1 | 
| MimeType | The MIME type(s) supported by this entry. | string(s) | NO | NO | 1 | 
| Categories | Categories in which the entry should be shown in a menu (for possible values see the Desktop Menu Specification). | string(s) | NO | NO | 1 | 
| StartupNotify | If true, it is KNOWN that the application will send a "remove"
			message when started with the DESKTOP_LAUNCH_IDenvironment variable
			set (see the Startup Notification Protocol Specification for more details). | boolean | NO | NO | 1 | 
| StartupWMClass | If true, it is KNOWN that the application will map at least one window with the given string as its WM class or WM name hint (see the Startup Notification Protocol Specification for more details). | string | NO | NO | 1 | 
| URL | If entry is Link type, the URL to access. | string | NO | YES | 2 | 
| Dev | The device to mount. | string | NO | NO | 3 | 
| FSType | The type of file system to try to mount. | string | NO | NO | 3 | 
| MountPoint | The mount point of the device in question. | string | NO | NO | 3 | 
| ReadOnly | Specifies whether or not the device is read only. | boolean | NO | NO | 3 | 
| UnmountIcon | Icon to display when device is not mounted.  Mounted devices display icon from the Iconkey.UnmountIcons may be localized with theUnmountIcon[xx]=syntax. | string | NO | NO | 3 | 
| SortOrder | This may specify the order in which to display files. | string(s) | NO | NO | 4 | 
      Each Exec field may take a number of arguments which will be
      expanded by the file manager or program launcher and passed to the
      program if necessary.
    
      Literal % characters must be escaped as %%, and adding new
      format characters is not allowed. It's a fatal error to have an
      Exec field with a format character not given in the spec (exception
      to this are the deprecated format characters which can be ignored,
      that is expanded to no parameters, by the implementation).
      Again for emphasis: nonstandard extensions are 
      not allowed here - you must add an X-Foo-Exec field if you have
      nonstandard Exec lines.
    
The escaping of the exec parameters is done in the way the mailcap specification describes. Take a look at RFC 1524 for more information.
Recognized fields are as follows:
| %f | A single file name, even if multiple files are selected.  The system
	      reading the desktop entry should recognize that the program in
	      question cannot handle multiple file arguments, and it should
	      should probably spawn and execute multiple copies of a program
	      for each selected file if the program is not able to handle
	      additional file arguments. If files are not on the local file system
	      (i.e. are on HTTP or FTP locations), the files will be copied to the local
	      file system and %fwill be expanded to point at the temporary
	      file. Used for programs that do not understand the URL syntax. | 
| %F | A list of files. Use for apps that can open several local files at once. | 
| %u | A single URL. | 
| %U | A list of URLs. | 
| %d | Directory containing the file that would be passed in a %ffield. | 
| %D | List of directories containing the files that would be
              passed in to a %Ffield. | 
| %n | A single filename (without path). | 
| %N | A list of filenames (without paths). | 
| %i | The Iconfield of the desktop entry
              expanded as two parameters, first--iconand then the contents of theIconfield. Should not expand as any
              parameters if theIconfield is empty
              or missing. | 
| %c | The translated Namefield associated with the desktop entry. | 
| %k | The location of the desktop file as either a URI (if for example gotten from the vfolder system) or a local filename or empty if no location is known. | 
| %v | The name of the Deviceentry in the desktop file. | 
      The MimeType key is used to indicate the MIME
      Types that an application knows how to handle.  Applications that
      can handle multiple MIME Types would list all of the ones it can
      handle in a ';' separated list, as normal.  It is expected that
      for some applications this list could become long.  An application
      is expected to be able to reasonably open files of these types
      using the command listed in the Exec keyword.
    
      There should be no priority for MIME Types in this field, or any
      form of priority in the desktop file.  Priority for applications
      is handled external to the .desktop files.
    
To make parsing of all the desktop files less costly, a update-desktop-database program is provided that will generate a cache file. The concept is identical to that of the 'update-mime-database' program in that it lets applications avoid reading in (potentially) hundreds of files. It will need to be run after every desktop file is installed. One cache file is created for every directory in $XDG_DATA_DIRS/applications/, and will create a file called $XDG_DATA_DIRS/applications/mimeinfo.cache.
The format of the cache is similar to that of the desktop file, and is just a list mapping mime-types to desktop files. Here's a quick example of what it would look like:
application/x-foo=foo.desktop;bar.desktop; application/x-bar=bar.desktop;
	Each MIME Type is listed only once per cache file, and the
	desktop-id is expected to exist in that particular directory.
	That is to say, if the cache file is located at
	/usr/share/applications/mimeinfo.cache,
	bar.desktop refers to the file
	/usr/share/applications/bar.desktop.
      
There is also a preference list to determine preferred application of a given MIME Type. It defines the 'default' application to handle a given MIME Type. It has the same format as the cache list.
mime/type=desktop-id.desktop;
	If a mime type is listed multiple times (either in the same
	file, or in another file further down the search path), the
	latter mention wins.  If a listed file doesn't exist, or is
	precluded through the OnlyShowIn or
	NotShowIn files, they should be ignored.
	This means that applications will have to keep a history of the
	preferred applications that they run into, so that if the top
	desktop file for a given MIME Type isn't available, the second
	one can be tested, etc.
      
It is also worth noting who this mechanism is defined for. It is primarily intended for use by distributors/sysadmins to provide a sane set of defaults for their users. Additionally, users themselves can use this mechanism to override the user defaults. We intentionally don't provide a way for application authors themselves to list themselves as the default for a given type, as we felt that that cannot work.
      If the standard is to be amended with a new {key,value} pair which
      should be applicable to all supporting parties, a group discussion
      will take place.  This is the preferred method for introducing
      changes.  If one particular party wishes to add a field for personal
      use, they should prefix the key with the string X-,
      e.g. PRODUCTX-NewDesktop-Foo, following the precedent set by other IETF and RFC
      standards.
    
      Alternatively, fields can be placed in their own group, where they may
      then have arbitrary key names.  If this is the case, the group should
      follow the scheme outlined above,
      i.e. [X- or
      something similar.  These steps will avoid namespace clashes between
      different yet similar environments.
    PRODUCT
      GROUPNAME]
[Desktop Entry] Version=1.0 Type=Application Name=Foo Viewer Comment=The best viewer for Foo objects available! TryExec=fooview Exec=fooview %F Icon=fooview.png MimeType=image/x-foo X-KDE-Library=libfooview X-KDE-FactoryName=fooviewfactory X-KDE-ServiceType=FooService [Desktop Action Inverse] Exec=fooview --inverse %f Name=Foo Viewer (inverse image) [Desktop Action Edit] Exec=fooview --edit %f Name=Foo Viewer (edit image) Icon=fooview-edit.png
      During the time KDE added some extensions that are currently not
      prefixed by the X- prefix, but should be in
      future KDE releases.
    
         Keys added by KDE: ServiceTypes,
         DocPath, Keywords,
         InitialPreference
        
         Types added by KDE: ServiceType, Service
        
As this standard is quite old there are some deprecated items that may or may not be used by several implementations.
          Type=MimeType is deprecated as there is a
          new standard for this now, see the Shared
          MIME-info Database specification for more
          information. In consequence the Keys
          Patterns (various file name extensions
          associated with the MIME type) and
          DefaultApp (the default application
          associated with this MIME type) are also deprecated.
        
          Using .kdelnk instead of
          .desktop as the file extension is
          deprecated.
        
          Using [KDE Desktop Entry] instead of
          [Desktop Entry] as header is deprecated.
        
	  The Encoding key is deprecated. It was used to
	  specify whether keys of type localestring were
	  encoded in UTF-8 or in the specified locale. Possible values are
	  UTF-8 and Legacy-Mixed. See
	  Appendix D, The Legacy-Mixed Encoding (Deprecated) for more details.
        
          Deprecated Exec parameters:
          %m (the mini-icon associated with the
          desktop entry, this should be expanded as two parameters,
          --miniicon and the content of the
          MiniIcon field, it can also be ignored by
          expanding it to no parameters).
        
          Deprecated keys: MiniIcon (small icon for
          menus, etc.), TerminalOptions (if the
          program runs in a terminal, any options that should be
          passed to the terminal emulator before actually executing
          the program), Protocols,
          Extensions,
          BinaryPattern,
          MapNotify.
        
	  The SwallowTitle and
	  SwallowExec keys are deprecated.
	  The SwallowTitle key is of type
	  localestring and specifies the title of the window
	  if is swallowed onto the panel. The SwallowExec
	  key is of type string and specifies the
	  program to exec if swallowed app is clicked.
        
    Historically some booleans have been represented by the numeric
    entries 0 or 1. With
    this version of the standard they are now to be represented as a
    boolean string. However, if an implementation is reading a pre-1.0
    desktop entry, it should interpret 0 and
    1 as false and
    true, respectively. 
        
Historically lists have been comma separated. This is inconsistent with other lists which are separated by a semicolon. When reading a pre-1.0 desktop entry, comma separated lists should continue to be supported.
Legacy-Mixed Encoding (Deprecated)
      The Legacy-Mixed encoding corresponds to the
      traditional encoding of desktop files in older versions of the GNOME and
      KDE desktop files. In this encoding, the encoding of each
      localestring key is determined by the locale tag for
      that key, if any, instead of being UTF-8. For keys without a locale tag,
      the value must contain only ASCII characters.
    
If the file specifies an unsupported encoding, the implementation should either ignore the file, or, if the user has requested a direct operation on the file (such as opening it for editing), display an appropriate error indication to the user.
      In the absence of an Encoding line, the implementation may choose
      to autodetect the encoding of the file by using such factors
      as:
    
The location of the file on the file system
Whether the contents of the file are valid UTF-8
      If the implementation does not perform such auto-detection, it should
      treat a file without an Encoding key in the same way as a file with an
      unsupported Encoding Key.
    
      If the locale tag includes an . part, then that determines
      the encoding for the line. Otherwise, the encoding is determined
      by the language, or
      ENCODINGlang_COUNTRY
| Encoding | Aliases | Tags | 
|---|---|---|
| ARMSCII-8 (*) | hy | |
| BIG5 | zh_TW | |
| CP1251 | be bg | |
| EUC-CN | GB2312 | zh_CN | 
| EUC-JP | ja | |
| EUC-KR | ko | |
| GEORGIAN-ACADEMY (*) | ||
| GEORGIAN-PS (*) | ka | |
| ISO-8859-1 | br ca da de en es eu fi fr gl it nl no pt sv wa | |
| ISO-8859-2 | cs hr hu pl ro sk sl sq sr | |
| ISO-8859-3 | eo | |
| ISO-8859-5 | mk sp | |
| ISO-8859-7 | el | |
| ISO-8859-9 | tr | |
| ISO-8859-13 | lt lv mi | |
| ISO-8859-14 | cy ga | |
| ISO-8859-15 | et | |
| KOI8-R | ru | |
| KOI8-U | uk | |
| TCVN-5712 (*) | TCVN | vi | 
| TIS-620 | th | |
| VISCII | 
	    The name given here is listed here is typically the
	    canonical name for the encoding in the GNU C Library's
	    iconv facility.  Encodings marked with (*) are not
	    currently supported by the GNU C Library; for this reason,
	    implementations may choose to ignore lines in desktop
	    files that resolve to this encoding. Desktop files with
	    these encodings are currently rare or non-existent.
	  
Other names for the encoding found in existing desktop files.
Language tags for which this is the default encoding.
      This table above covers all tags and encodings that are known to
      be currently in use. Implementors may choose to support
      encodings not in the above set. For tags without defaults listed
      in the above table, desktop file creators must specify the
      . part of the locale tag.
    ENCODING
      Matching the . part of the locale tag against a locale
      name or alias should be done by stripping all punctuation
      characters from both the tag and the name or alias, converting
      both name and alias to lowercase, and comparing the result.
      This is necessary because, for example, ENCODINGBig5 is frequently
      found instead of BIG5 and georgianacademy instead of
      GEORGIAN-ACADEMY. Desktop files creators should, however, use
      the name as it appears in the "Encoding" column above.