{"id":12495,"date":"2026-09-04T14:57:31","date_gmt":"2026-09-04T14:57:31","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.itwriting.com\/blog\/?p=12495"},"modified":"2026-09-04T14:58:04","modified_gmt":"2026-09-04T14:58:04","slug":"why-does-a-maui-app-store-data-under-user-name-on-windows","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.itwriting.com\/blog\/12495-why-does-a-maui-app-store-data-under-user-name-on-windows.html","title":{"rendered":"Why does a MAUI app store data under “User Name” on Windows?"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

I am experimenting with Microsoft’s MAUI (multi-platform app UI) and have encountered various little problems. MAUI apps run on Android, iOS, Windows (WinUI 3) and Mac (Mac Catalyst), though in my case I am mainly interested in Windows and Mac.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The application needs local storage and follows the mobile app principle of isolating this into a directory largely buried from the user’s view. On the Mac this location is:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\/Users\/[username]\/Library\/Containers\/[ApplicationId]\/<\/p>\n\n\n\n

where the [username] is my username on the Mac, and the [ApplicationId] is the App Identifier set in the .csproj project configuration file. All this makes sense to me.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

On Windows though I was surprised to see that the local storage was at:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

c:\\Users\\[username]\\AppData\\Local\\User Name<\/p>\n\n\n

\n
\"\"<\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

Note that “User Name” is the actual name of the directory, not a placeholder for my username.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I thought this must be a bug and even looked at the MAUI source on GitHub. It turns out that it is not a bug; it is the default value for PublisherDisplayName in the platform-specific file Package.appxmanifest. I replaced this with something more suitable and this then became the name of the directory.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The application data is in a subfolder, the name of which is determined by the DisplayName of the application. For a packaged application installed from the Microsoft Store, publishers register this name with Microsoft to avoid conflict with another publisher.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I am experimenting with Microsoft’s MAUI (multi-platform app UI) and have encountered various little problems. MAUI apps run on Android, iOS, Windows (WinUI 3) and Mac (Mac Catalyst), though in my case I am mainly interested in Windows and Mac. The application needs local storage and follows the mobile app principle of isolating this into … Continue reading Why does a MAUI app store data under “User Name” on Windows?<\/span> →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2,26,60,1519],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-12495","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-net","category-development","category-notes-from-the-field","category-tech"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.itwriting.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12495","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.itwriting.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.itwriting.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.itwriting.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.itwriting.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=12495"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.itwriting.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12495\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":12498,"href":"https:\/\/www.itwriting.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12495\/revisions\/12498"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.itwriting.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=12495"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.itwriting.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=12495"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.itwriting.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=12495"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}