XDG-OPEN(1)

✨ NAME ✨

xdg-open — opens a file or URL in the user's preferred application 💅

okay bestie, so this is the lil man page for xdg-open, from the xdg-utils manual, and it's honestly iconic for one specific reason: it's the vibe-check of "just open this thing the way I like it" 🫶

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🌸 SYNOPSIS 🌸

xdg-open {file | URL}

xdg-open {--help | --manual | --version}

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🦋 DESCRIPTION 🦋

xdg-open opens a file or URL in the user's preferred application. That's literally the whole thing and it ate. 🔥

Hand it a URL? Boom, it opens in your preferred web browser. Hand it a file? It opens in the preferred application for files of that type. xdg-open supports file, ftp, http and https URLs.

✨ Important vibe check: xdg-open is for use inside a desktop session only. And it is not recommended to use xdg-open as root. Like, please don't, bestie 😭

So here's the lil gotcha: xdg-open can not handle arguments that begin with a -, so if you're passing filepaths you should do it one of these 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.

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💅 OPTIONS 💅

• --help — Show command synopsis. (the quick lil "what do I type" moment 🎀)
• --manual — Show this manual page. (you're soaking in it rn 💖)
• --version — Show the xdg-utils version information. (so you can flex which version you're on ⭐)

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👑 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.

Okay now the tea on success ☕ 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. That's not a bug babes, that's on purpose 💀✨

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🌈 REPORTING ISSUES 🌈

Please keep in mind xdg-open inherits most of the flaws of its configuration and the underlying opener. (it's giving "not my fault, it's my environment" 🙈)

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 . 🫶

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🔥 SEE ALSO 🔥

• xdg-mime(1)
• xdg-settings(1)
• MIME applications associations specification[1]

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🍓 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. 🖼️💖

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💜 AUTHORS 💜

• Kevin Krammer — Author.
• Jeremy White — Author.

legendary behaviour tbh 👑

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🎀 COPYRIGHT 🎀

Copyright © 2006

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⭐ NOTES ⭐

1. MIME applications associations specification http://www.freedesktop.org/wiki/Specifications/mime-apps-spec/

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and that's the whole thing bestie, slay 💅✨ this was xdg-utils 1.0, dated 12/06/2025, and yeah the manual page is literally called XDG-OPEN(1) — iconic, no cap 🦋🌸