[vetinari]

Oh, mac has the same issue and for the same reason: the same programs will create the same garbage.

~/Library also isn't something that is used to be; it was good idea, but mostly ignored. Basically similar idea as XDG_(CONFIG|CACHE|DATA)_DIR.

What's worst, is that many projects ignore any effort to move them to XDG schema. They take the approach, that they always did it this way, it works, so why changing it.

Dot files in my homedir on Sonoma machine:

    .CFUserTextEncoding
    .DS_Store
    .Trash/
    .Xauthority
    .amt
    .android/
    .anyconnect
    .bash_history
    .cache/
    .cargo/
    .config/
    .cups/
    .degit/
    .deno/
    .docker/
    .eclipse/
    .emacs.d/
    .gitconfig
    .gitignore_global
    .grass7/
    .hex/
    .homeassistant/
    .ipython/
    .java.login.config
    .jupyter/
    .kube/
    .lemminx/
    .lesshst
    .local/
    .matplotlib/
    .mix/
    .mume/
    .node/
    .notable.json
    .npm/
    .nvm/
    .oh-my-zsh/
    .oracle_jre_usage/
    .pip/
    .profile
    .psql_history
    .python_history
    .rest-client/
    .rustup/
    .sqitch/
    .ssh/
    .subversion/
    .swiftpm/
    .thumbnails/
    .viminfo
    .vscode/
    .wget-hsts
    .wine/
    .yarn/
    .yarnrc
    .zcompdump
    .zsh_history
    .zsh_sessions/
    .zshenv
    .zshrc

[tristan957]

Many of these you can move if you wanted. For instance, git looks in $XDG_CONFIG_HOME.

[Wowfunhappy]

My home directory is much cleaner because I've made a concerted effort to keep it that way, in a couple of cases even recompiling software. I found this much more difficult on Linux.