platformdirs

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A Python package for determining platform-specific directories (e.g. user data, config, cache, logs). Handles the differences between macOS, Windows, Linux/Unix, and Android so you don't have to.

Quick start

from platformdirs import PlatformDirs

dirs = PlatformDirs("MyApp", "MyCompany")
dirs.user_data_dir  # ~/.local/share/MyApp (Linux)
dirs.user_config_dir  # ~/.config/MyApp (Linux)
dirs.user_cache_dir  # ~/.cache/MyApp (Linux)
dirs.user_state_dir  # ~/.local/state/MyApp (Linux)
dirs.user_log_dir  # ~/.local/state/MyApp/log (Linux)
dirs.user_documents_dir  # ~/Documents
dirs.user_downloads_dir  # ~/Downloads
dirs.user_runtime_dir  # /run/user/<uid>/MyApp (Linux)

For Path objects instead of strings:

from platformdirs import PlatformDirs

dirs = PlatformDirs("MyApp", "MyCompany")
dirs.user_data_path  # pathlib.Path('~/.local/share/MyApp')
dirs.user_config_path  # pathlib.Path('~/.config/MyApp')

Convenience functions for quick access:

from platformdirs import user_data_dir, user_config_path

user_data_dir("MyApp", "MyCompany")  # returns str
user_config_path("MyApp", "MyCompany")  # returns pathlib.Path

Directory types

Application directories — scoped to your app name and version:

  • Data: Persistent application data (user_data_dir, site_data_dir)
  • Config: Configuration files and settings (user_config_dir, site_config_dir)
  • Preference: User preferences, distinct from config on macOS (user_preference_dir)
  • Cache: Cached data that can be regenerated (user_cache_dir, site_cache_dir)
  • State: Non-essential runtime state like window positions (user_state_dir, site_state_dir)
  • Logs: Log files (user_log_dir, site_log_dir)
  • Runtime: Runtime files like sockets and PIDs (user_runtime_dir, site_runtime_dir)

App dirs have both user_* (per-user, writable) and site_* (system-wide, read-only) variants where applicable.

User media directories — standard user-facing folders, not scoped to app name:

  • Documents (user_documents_dir), Downloads (user_downloads_dir)
  • Pictures (user_pictures_dir), Videos (user_videos_dir), Music (user_music_dir)
  • Desktop (user_desktop_dir), Projects (user_projects_dir)
  • Public share (user_publicshare_dir), Templates (user_templates_dir)
  • Fonts (user_fonts_dir) — user-writable font installation directory
  • Executable (user_bin_dir, site_bin_dir), Applications (user_applications_dir, site_applications_dir)

Documentation

Full documentation is available at platformdirs.readthedocs.io:

Contributions are welcome! See CONTRIBUTING.md for details.

Project links

Data verified by PyPI on Sep 16, 2026
Data provided by the project maintainers, verified at the time the release was uploaded to PyPI.

Key dates

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Owner

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3 maintainers

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Avatar for Julian from gravatar.com Julian Avatar for Ofekmeister from gravatar.com Ofekmeister Avatar for ronny from gravatar.com ronny

Credits

Maintainer: Bernát Gábor

GitHub Statistics

Data verified by PyPI on Sep 16, 2026
The GitHub source repository was provided by the project maintainers and verified by PyPI at the time of upload. Stars, forks, and open issues/PRs are derived from that repository and have not been independently verified.

License expression

MIT
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Requires

Python >=3.10

Tags

appdirs application cache directory log user

Classifiers

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