Platform-paths NPM

platform-paths

Retrieve platform specific paths to user folders such as downloads, documents, etc.

Supports linux, darwin, and win32 platforms.

Available paths: tmp, home, downloads, documents, pictures, music, videos, desktop.

Retrieval methods:

Linux: uses xdg-user-dir with a fallback to standard path names.
Windows: uses reg query to retrieve and parse out the paths with a fallback to standard path names.
macOS: simply constructs the standard path, as afaik these don't change on mac.

Pros:

Tiny & simple.
No dependencies.
No native modules, bindings, or binaries.
Built in caching.

Cons:

Potentially less robust than other alternatives.

Install

npm install platform-paths

Usage

import {getPlatformPath, platformPaths, getDownloadsPath} from 'platform-paths';

const downloadsPath = await getPlatformPath('downloads');
// or
const downloadsPath = await platformPaths.download();
// or
const downloadsPath = await getDownloadsPath();

API

Exported interfaces:

interface Options {
	maxAge?: number; // milliseconds, default: 0 (no caching)
}

// Name getter
async function getPlatformPath(name: string, options?: Options): Promise<string>;

// Individual getters
async function getTmpPath(options?: Options): Promise<string>;
async function getHomePath(options?: Options): Promise<string>;
async function getDownloadsPath(options?: Options): Promise<string>;
async function getDocumentsPath(options?: Options): Promise<string>;
async function getPicturesPath(options?: Options): Promise<string>;
async function getMusicPath(options?: Options): Promise<string>;
async function getVideosPath(options?: Options): Promise<string>;
async function getDesktopPath(options?: Options): Promise<string>;

// Individual getters as a map
const platformPaths = {
	tmp: (options?: Options) => Promise<string>,
	home: (options?: Options) => Promise<string>,
	downloads: (options?: Options) => Promise<string>,
	documents: (options?: Options) => Promise<string>,
	pictures: (options?: Options) => Promise<string>,
	music: (options?: Options) => Promise<string>,
	videos: (options?: Options) => Promise<string>,
	desktop: (options?: Options) => Promise<string>,
};

// Checks if string is a platform path identifier
// (one of platformPaths keys)
function isPlatformPathIdentifier(name: string): name is keyof typeof platformPaths;

// Manual cache clearing
function clearCache(): void;

Caching

The retrieval methods for these paths are not instant, so if you're calling this a lot, you might want to enable caching.

This is done by simply passing a maxAge option to any of the exported methods. This options is 0 by default (caching disabled):

// Re-queries when older than 10 seconds
const downloadsPath = getPlatformPath('downloads', {maxAge: 10_000});

// Only queries 1st time, then always cached
const downloadsPath = getDownloadsPath({maxAge: Infinity});