KDE defines a filesystem hierarchy which is used by the KDE environment itself as well as all KDE applications. In general KDE stores all its files in a directory tree with a fixed structure.

By default KDE uses two directory trees:

As a system administrator you can create additional trees. Such additional trees can be used for profiles

KDE and KDE applications look up files by scanning all the KDE directory trees. The directory trees are checked in order of precedence. When a file is present in multiple directory trees, the file from the last tree takes precedence. Normally, the tree located in the user's home directory has the highest precedence. This is also the directory tree to which changes are written.

For configuration files the story is slightly different. If there are multiple configuration files found in the directory trees with the same name, their content is combined. The precedence order of the directory trees plays a role here. When two files define the same configuration key, the file with the highest precedence determines which value is used for the key.

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