That should be covered by the part about "best practices".

That said, I keep finding more AppData files in my Documents folders than the other way around. Linux software (especially legacy software that doesn't respect the XDG spec) is the worst for that, somehow spreading files and directories across my user profile directory and my documents directory.

Probably just preference but I hate when apps put things in the documents folder, thats where I want to put the things I've created specifically, not automated config files etc. There should be a 'Preferences' folder or something to separate the chod in AppData from the useful stuff.

I'd never heard of AppData until a few years ago when I went hunting for where some game config file was getting written to.

Seemed like a bunch of disparate things with the most common probably being a dumping ground for programming language library caches (Maven and NuGet and maybe another couple).

>I cannot stand AppData, specifically the way it's often used to store files that should be in Documents.

Which programs do that? Or do you think things like preferences for programs should live among your documents?

It is not meant for that, rather blame the developers.