frontpage.
newsnewestaskshowjobs

Open Source @Github

fp.

Open in hackernews

Thunderbird Littering My Home

https://thefoggiest.dev/2026/06/04/thunderbird-littering-my-home
34•speckx•2h ago

Comments

lomlobon•1h ago
I've long given up on keeping a clean home folder because so many software do this and keeping it clean is a constant chore. Now I just make a real_home folder in my 'home' and put all my actual stuff there. They can use the ~ landfill
neuropacabra•49m ago
I stopped using that software no matter how painful it was some games included. I wanted to play BG2 and the remake from GOG just litter the Documents folder even when running though Wine. Well, no game for then. Pity. I want my computer to serve me and to have my own files where yo want them.
yjftsjthsd-h•17m ago
Doesn't WINE let you pick folder mappings?
F3nd0•9m ago
It does. Run `winecfg` and see ‘Folders’ under the ‘Desktop Integration’ tab. Wine used to link these to directories in your home directory by default; not sure if that’s still the case, but you can definitely change it.
the__alchemist•1h ago
There are so many annoyances in TB. I stopped using it after a few days. My primary concerns:

  - Opening an email thread opens multiple (potentially many) tabs, and is difficult to nagivate or understand the flow of messages
  - I don't know how to write an email without it making the spacing between paragraphs/lines larger than I would like. (I.e. double-spacing)
  - Search is unreliable / broken.
fph•54m ago
What did you replace it with?
sam_lowry_•51m ago
mutt?
the__alchemist•36m ago
Webmail (Fastmail's official webapp in this case)
Saris•39m ago
Shift+Enter for a normal new line. No idea why it's like this.
sam_lowry_•57m ago
Most of the time, you can control where XDG puts its litter, cf. https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/XDG_user_directories

Just note that XDG_DESKTOP_DIR and XDG_DOWNLOAD_DIR can not point to the same directory or chromium will disregard your config.

P.S. Reader, if you can commit to chromium without much hassle, check this and fix: https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/Talk:XDG_user_directories

nixosbestos•42m ago
You (and other folks...) should probably click-through to the bugzilla links. Yes, normally. But, it looks like some legacy code path near the XDG stuff caused an accidental extra dir creation.

(I was rolling my eye wading in, thinking that Thunderbird was doing XDG and maybe some distro just wasn't setting XDG_CONFIG_HOME correctly, etc, but alas, no it's a TB bug)

miduil•41m ago
You can skip inotify tools altogether and do use systemd like this to trigger `rm -rf`:

    `~/.config/systemd/user/remove-thunderbird-dir.path`

   [Unit]
   Description=Watch for unwanted ~/thunderbird directory
   

   [Path]
   PathExists=%h/thunderbird
   Unit=remove-thunderbird-dir.service
   
   [Install]
   WantedBy=default.target
hungryhobbit•20m ago
Seems like with Claude you could have submitted a PR (to actually fix the issue) in the time it took to come up with the hack.
gruez•17m ago
But there's no guarantee that the PR would get merged.
cassianoleal•11m ago
Or worked
daneel_w•11m ago
Try Betterbird. On the whole I find that fork a better experience than Thunderbird.
jvyden•7m ago
You're lucky you only get one. I get two, `~/thunderbird/` and `~/Thunderbird/`

Stop the Apple Music app from launching

https://lowtechguys.com/musicdecoy/
337•bobbiechen•2h ago•126 comments

MiMo-v2.5-Pro-UltraSpeed: 1T model with 1000 tokens per second

https://mimo.xiaomi.com/blog/mimo-tilert-1000tps
360•gainsurier•4h ago•253 comments

Show HN: Performative-UI – a react component library of design tropes

https://vorpus.github.io/performativeUI/
546•lizhang•5h ago•112 comments

Switzerland wil have a referendum to cap population at 10M

https://www.admin.ch/en/sustainability-initiative
34•napolux•23m ago•24 comments

Full Reverse Engineering of the TI-84 Plus Operating System

https://siraben.github.io/ti84p-re/
66•siraben•1h ago•11 comments

Anti-social: It's fads, not friends, which now dominate social media feeds

https://www.bbc.com/worklife/article/20260520-how-social-media-ceased-to-be-social
403•1vuio0pswjnm7•7h ago•330 comments

xAI is looking more like a datacentre REIT than a frontier lab

https://martinalderson.com/posts/xais-new-rental-business/
172•martinald•4h ago•123 comments

Why are cells small?

https://burrito.bio/essays/what-limits-a-cells-size
11•mailyk•22m ago•2 comments

Ask HN: What are tools you have made for yourself since the advent of AI?

16•aryamaan•1h ago•12 comments

Thunderbird Littering My Home

https://thefoggiest.dev/2026/06/04/thunderbird-littering-my-home
34•speckx•2h ago•19 comments

OCaml Onboarding: Introduction to the Dune build system

https://ocamlpro.com/blog/2025_07_29_ocaml_onboarding_introduction_to_dune/
93•andrewstetsenko•4d ago•8 comments

Launch HN: Intuned (YC S22) – Build and run reliable browser automations as code

https://intunedhq.com
86•fkilaiwi•5h ago•37 comments

Apple WWDC 2026 Livestream

https://www.apple.com/apple-events/event-stream/
157•nextstep•2h ago•312 comments

A Farmer Donated Land to Turn into a Park. The City Is Building a Data Center

https://www.404media.co/a-farmer-donated-land-to-turn-into-a-park-the-city-is-building-a-massive-...
354•greedo•4h ago•185 comments

EU-banned pesticides found in rice, tea and spices

https://www.foodwatch.org/en/eu-banned-pesticides-found-in-rice-tea-and-spices
36•john-titor•3h ago•14 comments

AI Is Slowing Down

https://www.wheresyoured.at/ai-is-slowing-down/
167•crescit_eundo•3h ago•195 comments

Massachusetts bans sale of precise location data in new privacy rights bill

https://techcrunch.com/2026/06/08/massachusetts-votes-to-pass-new-privacy-rights-bill-that-bans-s...
92•01-_-•2h ago•14 comments

The Cypherpunk Library

https://www.cypherpunkbooks.com
292•yu3zhou4•11h ago•90 comments

Using XDG-Compliant Config Files – WxWidgets

https://wxwidgets.org/blog/2024/01/using-xdg-compliant-config-files/
8•ankitg12•4d ago•0 comments

Mutation Testing in Haskell

https://cs-syd.eu/posts/2026-06-03-mutation-testing-in-haskell
32•Norfair•5d ago•0 comments

How much of Thermo Fisher's antibody data has been manipulated?

https://reeserichardson.blog/2026/05/28/how-much-of-thermo-fishers-antibody-data-has-been-manipul...
346•mhrmsn•12h ago•76 comments

Dopamine Fracking

https://igerman.cc/blog/dopamine-fracking/
719•igmn•16h ago•368 comments

Sam Bankman-Fried applies for a pardon from Trump

https://techcrunch.com/2026/06/08/sam-bankman-fried-applies-for-a-pardon-from-trump/
68•pseudolus•1h ago•33 comments

Are you expected to run five Python type-checkers now?

https://pyrefly.org/blog/too-many-type-checkers/
98•ocamoss•7h ago•93 comments

Italy's Bending Spoons, owner of AOL and Vimeo, files for Nasdaq IPO

https://www.reuters.com/legal/transactional/italys-bending-spoons-files-us-ipo-2026-06-08/
83•mmarian•4h ago•72 comments

Spanish traders set the standard for GnuCash database design

https://handson.money/blog/2026-06-06-horse-arse-and-design/
72•vitalikpie•6h ago•64 comments

Zig by Example

https://github.com/boringcollege/zig-by-example
195•dariubs•6h ago•95 comments

Life is too short for a slow terminal

https://mijndertstuij.nl/posts/life-is-too-short-for-a-slow-terminal/
72•emschwartz•2d ago•62 comments

Why are so many young people getting cancer?

https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-026-01780-6
126•Brajeshwar•3h ago•127 comments

Siri AI

https://www.apple.com/apple-intelligence/
106•0xedb•1h ago•102 comments