...according to what comes up for me on Google, has not been asked since 2010

And the answers then were for GIMP Windows, which, had I never used it myself, I would put in the same category as 70's punk on CD: an abomination.

So on to the question:

Does anyone know, short of building your GIMP from scratch, how to set its default save location? I have a directory in ~/Pictures called "gimpfiles" that my own install of GIMP sees as if it were a default folder after I've saved to it twice or thrice.

I have no LAN set up, and I'm not on any VPN. Is this one of those things where what you don't have (costing money) is worse than what you do have (an open-source free OS and a great image manipulator, likewise)?

I sure hope not.

Carver

---non-helpful-answer---

You know, that's a damned good question. I searched here, there, GIMP manual, etc for the last 45 minutes and could not find anything about setting up a default save folder.

I'll be watching this thread. My guess is that this is going to require some sort of script to achieve.

~Eric

I don't see any settings, however I think there are a few options.

The first one is a possibility which I myself would not explore, it is to try using Gimp's theme capability. I have no idea if this is just style and view of the tool or other items, versus actual application settings. Low confidence from me on this one.

The second one is use of the application case, more applicable, as well as having been tested by me:

1. When you first enter Gimp, you can do a New image file, this is just a new image file, not saved anywhere. Gimp actually uses the defined temp directory (shown in your Preferences) for interim saving of this file. (And note that this is not a destination for saving files, it is merely Gimp's scratch location for unsaved files, which you can actually configure in the Preferences)
2. You can perform a Save or Save As action, the result is the same because the file has no name, thus Gimp will allow you to name your file and locate it in a directory of your choosing.
3. Then exit Gimp:
   1. Upon re-entering I've seen that if you go to Open a file, it will use the same directory where you last saved a file. (I tested this exactly once)
   2. If instead you create a New image file and then later go to Save it, Gimp will go to it's default directory; however in the left side of the Save/Save As window, you'll see Places where you should have a Recently Used link which brings you to your list of recently used directories, thus allowing you to re-select the former destination directory more rapidly.
   3. The next part of this is that you can drag the destination directory as shown from the Recently Used list into your Places bar and add it to your Places list. This paradigm is a bit flawed because sorting of the Places is seemingly not allowed and also removal of items from the Places list is not allowed, with the exception of recently used places you have added. Gimp appears to sort the list of Recently Used Places however it sorts by default.

Although this is not precisely what you wanted, it may offer you an interim solution where you don't have to rebuild gimp.

As far as themes, I genuinely feel that this option is potentially a bottomless pit of frustration. Anytime I've messed with playing with themes it's complex and beyond my tolerance. Fact is if it's really important I web search and may find someone or some one's who have done things like custom themes, and hope they provide an example, copy that verbatim, see the result, and then try to tweak it, finally leaving it alone if I succeed. I don't prefer this because I would have "landed" on a solution, by chance and there's little chance that I'll be able to replicate it in the far future. Note that I have low confidence that they have specifically added any attribute about the default save location to the theme concept. Instead theme seems more to be how someone tunes the "look" of the application.

Another thing I should note is that under Edit->Preferences there is a preference category called Tool Options and in my initial exploration of Gimp preferences I choose to say Save tool options on exit. I do not know if that does or doesn't do anything I selected it before I started this testing and left it that way. This may have impacted the situation where I saved to a directory, exited, and upon re-entering Gimp when I did a File->Open action it went to that former Save To directory automatically.

Next to note is I did run Mint Cinnamon 18.1 Serena, just grabbed today, and my version of Gimp is 2.8.16.

1 members found this post helpful.

I think that rtmistler has summarized the options pretty well.

I had not ever considered the question before as the "default to last used location" paradigm suits my own organizing and work habits pretty well for most applications.

As rtmistler says, in the file dialog left pane, Places, there are three sections separated by a horizontal bar and you can drag directories from the right pane into the left pane, where it will be added to the bottom section.

The only thing that I will add is that you can in fact, order the items in the bottom section by dragging them around, so that you can put your Gimp directory near the top if it is a long list. You can also delete items from the bottom section (right click or use the +/- arrows below the Places list).

The file dialog is a common GTK widget so you may be able to find more insight searching for "GTK file dialog" rather than limiting your question specifically to the Gimp implementation.

Hope this helps.

1 members found this post helpful.

Not just Gimp!

Audacity (2.0.5) on my OS X also doesn't have a straight-forward way to set up a default save folder...at least none that I've found. I think it counts on the OS remembering the last folder used. It used to work that way, but the last upgrade (or two) lost that behavior. Working through many mp3 files now involves a couple extra clicks when opening or saving.

Probably not what you're looking for, but IME the default is the PWD aka primary working directory. If you launch it from the command line in a path, that is the path it saves to. Although audacity seemed to have a memory and kept it's last saved location as the default. I couldn't find an option in the procedure browser in gimp, so that's probably as good as it gets. Perhaps the "menu" item could be changed to something like $(cd ~/default/gimp/location/ && gimp) instead of just $(gimp). Or maybe there's an environment variable? Although I don't know much about the inner workings of GTK to help you there.

Thank the gods I didn't mention themes, then. I doubt I've brought up (whatever you like) to do with that word in any of my posts so far.

I'm trying rmtmislter's suggestions, As for Audacity for OS X, I don't have the problem dlb101010 talked about. But I am annoyed with the Linux versions' consistently adding an aif extension on any file I export when the settings at the bottom of the Save dialog are already set for saving as mp3.

Carver