xfce4-session - Session Manager
Introduction
Xfce4-session is a session manager for Xfce. Its task is to save the state of your desktop (opened applications and their location) and restore it during a next startup. You can create several different sessions and choose one of them on startup.
General
- Preferences – Configure the behaviour of the session manager
- Logout Dialog – The logout dialog and more information about power management handling
- Frequently Asked Question – Tips and tricks related to xfce4-session
- Advanced – Advanced information about environment variables and kiosk mode
- Known Issues – Read this if xfce4-session causes trouble
Latest Release
- xfce4-session 4.21.2 released (2026/10/08 22:21)xfce4-session 4.21.2 is now available for download from https://archive.xfce.org/src/xfce/xfce4-session/4.21/xfce4-session-4.21.2.tar.xz https://archive.xfce.org/src/xfce/xfce4-session/4.21/xfce4-session-4.21.2.tar.xz?sha1 https://archive.xfce.org/src/xfce/xfce4-session/4.21/xfce4-session-4.21.2.tar.xz?sha256 What is xfce4-session? ====================== The Xfce session manager controls the loading of applications when Xfce is started. It also handles logging out, shutting down, and rebooting. Website: https://docs.xfce.org/xfce/xfce4-session/start Release notes for 4.21.2 ======================== [Please note that this is a development release.] - Add new libxfce4session-client library - Only set client's app ID once - Make save on shutdown work for dbus clients - Run discard command on delegate RemoveClient path - Don't drop all following toplevels if one of them is bad - Remove G_GNUC_PURE annotations - Validate ownership of client registration on unregister/remove - Require client_startup_id to be valid for ManagerDelegate.RegisterClient - Fix two possible use-after-frees on XfsmClient - Don't drop delegate clients unless we get ClientDisconnected - Enable all settings UI for Wayland - Remove some unnecessary Wayland-specific code - Don't forcibly kill dbus clients if they don't save in time - Handle checkpoint/shutdown properly on Wayland - Make checkpointing work for dbus clients - Start ICE listener on Wayland if DISPLAY is set - Evict clients that haven't been seen in ~9 months - Don't ever synthesize RestartCommand - Carry properties around for non-xfsm-aware clients - Fix bug in client-id-is-empty check in dbus RegisterClient - Only allow parent process to use ManagerDelegate/ClientDelegate - Add the Manager.AttachClient dbus method - Load and store toplevels & properties from/to session state file - Wire up ClientDelegate dbus methods - Wire up ManagerDelegate dbus methods - Add defns for the new ManagerDelegate and ClientDelegate interfaces - Unexport clients from dbus when they are closed - xinitrc: Add DISPLAY and XAUTHORITY to env update - gobject-linter: Fix unnecessary_null_check - logout-dialog: Adjust warning level when grab fails - Remove G_GNUC_CONST - Rename settings dialog .desktop file - startxfce4: move XDG_RUNTIME_DIR setup out of --wayland-only block - cppcheck: Fix nullPointerRedundantCheck - cppcheck: Fix constVariable - cppcheck: Fix assertWithSideEffect - cppcheck: Fix unreadVariable - cppcheck: Fix knownConditionTrueFalse - cppcheck: Fix nullPointerOutOfResources - cppcheck: Fix redundantInitialization - cppcheck: Fix unusedStructMember - cppcheck: Fix invalidPrintfArgType_sint - cppcheck: Fix memleak - cppcheck: Fix invalidPrintfArgType_uint - cppcheck: Fix unusedAllocatedMemory - cppcheck: Fix mismatchAllocDealloc - cppcheck: Fix unknownMacro - gobject-linter: Fix signal_canonical_name - gobject-linter: Fix inconsistent_function_signature - gobject-linter: Fix use_g_steal_pointer - gobject-linter: Fix g_error_leak - gobject-linter: Fix g_param_spec_static_strings - gobject-linter: Fix strcmp_explicit_comparison - gobject-linter: Fix matching_declare_define - gobject-linter: Fix missing_autoptr_cleanup - gobject-linter: Fix missing_implementation - gobject-linter: Fix use_clear_functions - Do not compare gboolean to TRUE or FALSE - I18n: Update po/LINGUAS list - Accept a DBus bus name to own in the XFCE4_SESSION_DBUS_BUS_NAME env var - logout-dialog: Do not create multiple dialogs - startxfce4: Add support for OpenBSD to kbd layout detection on wayland - portals: Add gnome-keyring as Secret provider - Translation Updates: Czech, Hungarian, Italian, Lao, Slovenian