Node.js - How to find the desktop path?

Question

As the mentioned Node.js - Find home directory in platform agnostic way question, we can find the home folder via this code:

const homedir = require('os').homedir();

But how can I find the desktop folder whatever language is it in Windows? Because in windows desktop folder name is differ to languages.

Answer 1

Actually, the name is always Desktop, regardless of language. However Windows creates a virtual alias for the folder. In Portuguese is "Área de Trabalho", but you can access with %USERPROFILE%\\Desktop

Answer 2

Try this

const homeDir = require('os').homedir();
const desktopDir = `${homedir}/Desktop`;
console.log(desktopDir);

It should work on Windows and MacOS.

Answer 3

NPM

With npm, try platform-folders

npm install platform-folders

import getPath from 'platform-folders';
console.log(getPath('downloads'));

Node

If you want to do it with raw node, the following works most of the time on all major platforms, but there are a few things to keep in mind:

It is does not have reliability equivalent to homedir() for these reasons:

1. All platforms have a home directory, but not all platforms have a desktop, and not all desktops are also folders.
2. homedir() will always point to the home folder even on future versions of a platform, but the code below will stop working on platforms that in future versions change where they put the default desktop.
3. homedir() will work even if the user configures a home directory in a strange location, but if a user configures the desktop to be in an unusual location, the following does not work.
4. This might fail to work on some platforms in some non-english locales, but in Windows, the desktop is accessible by "Desktop" in all languages.

const os = require('os');
const path = require('path');
const desktopDir = path.join(os.homedir(), "Desktop");
console.log(desktopDir);

Example Output:

C:\Users\jschmoe\Desktop
or
/home/jschmoe/Desktop