KDE Kleopatra Missing From Menu? Route Around It

The Problem

You install Kleopatra (KDE’s certificate manager and cryptography app), but it doesn’t show up in your application menu. The .desktop file exists at /usr/share/applications/org.kde.kleopatra.desktop, it’s configured correctly—but nothing.

You run kbuildsycoca5 to rebuild the menu cache. Still nothing.

The Workaround

KDE’s menu caching is sometimes broken or the Utility category is being filtered out. Route around it:

Create a symlink in your local applications directory:

mkdir -p ~/.local/share/applications
ln -s /usr/share/applications/org.kde.kleopatra.desktop ~/.local/share/applications/

Your menu system will pick it up from there. Kleopatra now shows up.

Why This Works

KDE checks local application directories before system ones. By symlinking the .desktop file into ~/.local/share/applications/, you’re giving your menu system an explicit local pointer to launch. It bypasses whatever is breaking the system-wide cache lookup.

The Lesson

When the infrastructure breaks, don’t fix the infrastructure—route around it. This is Unix philosophy: if one path doesn’t work, take another.