Adhere to the XDG Base Directory Specification

actually this is a launcher bug, can someone move it?

Would offer hugs if this could be looked into; Minecraft launcher, and the game itself should do a better job using modern Linux conventions (even if they are a bit daft).
Here’s how my custom env vars are, which are not the default XDG location:
XDG_DATA_HOME=/home/john/settings/data
XDG_RUNTIME_DIR=/home/john/settings/.runtime
XDG_CONFIG_HOME=/home/john/settings/config
XDG_CACHE_HOME=/home/john/settings/cache

If this bug could be updated and confirmed: afffects current version, launcher and client.

Minecraft is one of the few remaining applications on Linux that puts data in ~/.application/, would be great to see this fixed.

Still an issue with the latest minecraft (15w46a) and launcher.

Is this still a concern in the current Minecraft Launcher version 2.0.1003 / 2.0.1004? If so, please update the affected versions in order to best aid Mojang ensuring bugs are still valid in the latest releases/pre-releases. If this has been done, we can reopen the issue.

Keep in mind that the "Resolved"-Status on this ticket just means "Answered", and that we are waiting for further information on whether this issue still exists or not. It will be reopened it as soon as the requested information has been delivered.

Affects 2.2.741

I believe that we all should agree that this issue doesn't only affect UNIX-like Operating Systems... This change should be priority for Minecraft Launcher devs! Linux should get dedicated "minecraft" folder under $XDG_DATA_HOME and Windows should get relevant directory too! Minecraft is now a mature project - no longer this little unknown indie game made by the single-man army... I cannot think of a single other game (except for Minecraft clones) that installs under %AppData% (in MS Windows) and in the Linux user's home directory!

I have several Minecraft releases installed and couple of world saves on my machine - it's over 4GB as of now and only grows! Minecraft versions should be shared between computer users and only saves/login session should be stored inside of the user's $XDG_DATA_HOME.

What I am trying to say is that after over 10 years of the development - Minecraft should radically reconsider it's data structure to be more efficient and modern! It isn't only issue of Linux even if we are mostly affected because game's data sits permanently in one of our most important places... It is all just very frustrating!

I disagree with @Remco Haszing. I use a tool called Syncthing to synchronize my .minecraft folder between different machines - including Windows, Mac, and Linux machines. While my use case is quite rare, people using a USB drive or other methods to sync between multiple operating systems (even on the same machine via dual-boot) is not uncommon. This would be much more difficult if the directories were scattered across XDG directories. My proposal is to, instead, simply place the .minecraft directory in $XDG_DATA_HOME/minecraft. I know this is technically against the XDG specification, but I believe it's necessary to maintain compatibility with other operating systems and ease of backups.

I also disagree with @Daniel Wasiak. The issue with that proposal is that it is, again, splitting up the .minecraft folder, which causes issues with things like Forge. I, for one, like having my installed versions easily synced between my computers without having to sync multiple folders. Maybe there could be an option to either install system-wide or on a per-user basis instead?

EDIT: I was unaware that Jira does not use Markdown when I initially wrote this comment. My mistake has been corrected.

Thanks for the bug report. Considering this has been the setup for many years, there's currently a lot of dependencies on the current way this is structured. Therefore closing as won't fix.

There might be many dependencies today. We'll go complain to them too, tomorrow they will get fixed. At the very least, give us the option (not enforced) to adhere to the standard, and we'll slowly but steadily move in the right direction. Until then, well, we'll keep using other launchers like MultiMC.