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Life & fun · January 25, 2026

TUI for managing XDG default applications

Author here. I made this little TUI program for managing default applications on the Linux desktop. Maybe some of you will find it useful. Happy to answer any questions.

TUI for managing XDG default applications launched on January 25, 2026 with 138 votes, #229 of 14,585 launches that month and more than 95% of that year's launches.

Visit github.com ↗Alternativestop 2% of January 2026

In plain words

TUI for managing XDG default applications is a terminal user interface program that helps Linux desktop users set and manage their default applications. It provides a text-based way to configure which applications open specific file types and protocols, following the XDG standard. The tool is designed for users who prefer working in the terminal or need a straightforward alternative to graphical settings panels.

written from the facts on this page · September 2026

From the sources

TUI for managing XDG default applications. Contribute to mitjafelicijan/xdgctl development by creating an account on GitHub.

xdgctl is a TUI for managing XDG default applications. View and set defaults for file categories without using xdg-mime directly. # On Void Linux sudo xbps-install glibc-devel pkg-config Installation From source git clone https://github.com/mitjafelicijan/xdgctl.git cd xdgctl # Build make sudo make install # Using prefix sudo make PREFIX=/usr/local install make PREFIX= ~ /.local install If you manually add new applications to your ~/.local/share/applications directory, you might need to run update-desktop-database again. yay -Sy xdgctl More about XDG Application directories ls /usr/share/applications ls ~ /.local/share/applications Querying defaults xdg-mime query default text/plain…from github.com

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