On desktop platforms, Unity's persistentDataPath doesn't always pick the best place for you to store files. StandardPaths is here to help.
StandardPaths is a static class containing paths for Unity games to use for writing out files. It currently includes these paths:
saveDataDirectoryis a directory path to use for user-specific save data.configDirectoryis a directory path to use for user-specific settings/configuration.logDirectoryis a directory path to use for custom log output.
These are split apart for a couple reasons:
- Having logical names makes usage clearer, and allows for the underlying implementation to change without messing things up.
- Different platforms have different standards around where files are stored that can't be followed with just a single path.
On all non-desktop platforms, these properties return Application.persistentDataPath as that's the most reliable solution. Other platforms are detailed below.
In the examples below the {ProductPath} means {ProductName} by default, but can also mean {CompanyName}/{ProductName} if you have set StandardPaths.includeCompanyName to true.
The company and product names are read from Application.companyName and Application.productName, respectively, and are processed such that all characters that are invalid for paths are converted to underscores.
On Linux, the {ProductPath} is converted to all lower-case to follow platform convention.
saveDataDirectory maps to C:\Users\{User}\Documents\My Games\{ProductPath}\Saves as recommended by RockPaperShotgun.
configDirectory maps to C:\Users\{User}\Documents\My Games\{ProductPath}\Config because Windows doesn't have a separate location for configuration and this way users can easily find configuration files next to their save files.
logDirectory maps to C:\Users\{User}\Documents\My Games\{ProductPath}\Logs for the same logic as the config directory.
saveDataDirectory maps to $HOME/Library/Application Support/{ProductPath}/Saves, following Apple's documentation.
Technically the Apple documentation recommends using the bundle identifier for your directory such as ~/Library/Application Support/com.example.MyApp but in reality nobody does that, not even Apple who put data files from the Mac App Store at ~/Library/Application Support/App Store.
configDirectory maps to $HOME/Library/Application Support/{ProductPath}/Config. Some would argue it should be in $HOME/Library/Preferences but per Apple's documentation:
[Application Support] Contains all app-specific data and support files. These are the files that your app creates and manages on behalf of the user and can include files that contain user data.
[Preferences] Contains the user’s preferences. You should never create files in this directory yourself. To get or set preference values, you should always use the NSUserDefaults class or an equivalent system-provided interface.
As such it would be wrong to map this path to the Preferences directory and save custom files but it is accepted to store all data and support files in Application Support.
logDirectory maps to $HOME/Library/Logs/{ProductPath}.
In following the Free Desktop Specifications:
saveDataDirectory maps to $XDG_DATA_HOME/{ProductPath} when XDG_DATA_HOME exists, falling back to $HOME/.local/share/{ProductPath} if necessary.
configDirectory maps to $XDG_CONFIG_HOME/{ProductPath} when XDG_CONFIG_HOME exists, falling back to $HOME/.config/{ProductPath}
logDirectory maps to /var/log/{ProductPath}.