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XDG-OPEN(1) xdg-open Manual XDG-OPEN(1) NAME xdg-open - opens a file or URL in the user's preferred application SYNOPSIS xdg-open {file | URL} xdg-open {--help | --manual | --version} DESCRIPTION xdg-open opens a file or URL in the user's preferred application. If a URL is provided the URL will be opened in the user's preferred web browser. If a file is provided the file will be opened in the preferred application for files of that type. xdg-open supports file, ftp, http and https URLs. xdg-open is for use inside a desktop session only. It is not recommended to use xdg-open as root. As xdg-open can not handle arguments that begin with a "-" it is recommended to pass filepaths in one of the following ways: • Pass absolute paths, i.e. by using realpath as a preprocessor. • Prefix known relative filepaths with a "./". For example using sed -E 's|^[^/]|./\0|'. • Pass a file URL. OPTIONS --help Show command synopsis. --manual Show this manual page. --version Show the xdg-utils version information. EXIT CODES An exit code of 0 indicates success while a non-zero exit code indicates failure. The following failure codes can be returned: 1 Error in command line syntax. 2 One of the files passed on the command line did not exist. 3 A required tool could not be found. 4 The action failed. In case of success the process launched from the .desktop file will not be forked off and therefore may result in xdg-open running for a very long time. This behaviour intentionally differs from most desktop specific openers to allow terminal based applications to run using the same terminal xdg-open was called from. REPORTING ISSUES Please keep in mind xdg-open inherits most of the flaws of its configuration and the underlying opener. In case the command xdg-mime query default "$(xdg-mime query filetype path/to/troublesome_file)" names the program responsible for any unexpected behaviour you can fix that by setting a different handler. (If the program is broken let the developers know) Also see the security note on xdg-mime(1) for the default subcommand. If a flaw is reproducible using the desktop specific opener (and isn't a configuration issue): Please report to whoever is responsible for that first (reporting to xdg-utils is better than not reporting at all, but since the xdg-utils are maintained in very little spare time a fix will take much longer) In case an issue specific to xdg-open please report it to https://gitlab.freedesktop.org/xdg/xdg-utils/-/issues . SEE ALSO xdg-mime(1), xdg-settings(1), MIME applications associations specification[1] EXAMPLES xdg-open 'http://www.freedesktop.org/' Opens the freedesktop.org website in the user's default browser. xdg-open /tmp/foobar.png Opens the PNG image file /tmp/foobar.png in the user's default image viewing application. AUTHORS Kevin Krammer Author. Jeremy White Author. COPYRIGHT Copyright (C) 2006 NOTES 1. MIME applications associations specification http://www.freedesktop.org/wiki/Specifications/mime-apps-spec/ xdg-utils 1.0 04/12/2025 XDG-OPEN(1)
NAME | SYNOPSIS | DESCRIPTION | OPTIONS | EXIT CODES | REPORTING ISSUES | SEE ALSO | EXAMPLES | AUTHORS | COPYRIGHT | NOTES
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