Nautilus

Summary
This article covers installation, configuration, and general usage tips for Nautilus.
Related
GNOME
GVFS

Nautilus is the default file manager for GNOME. From the Gnome website: The Nautilus file manager provides a simple and integrated way to manage your files and applications. You can use the file manager to do the following:

• Create folders and documents
• Display your files and folders
• Search and manage your files
• Run scripts and launch applications
• Customize the appearance of files and folders
• Open special locations on your computer
• Write data to a CD or DVD
• Install and remove fonts

Installation

Install nautilus from the Official Repositories.

Note: Nautilus does not require the entire gnome-shell package, but it does require gnome-desktop. Some may find this nice because gnome-shell is a bit more of an undertaking to install.

Nautilus is part of the gnome group.

Configuration

Nautilus is simple to configure graphically, but not all potential configurations can be done via the preferences menu in nautilus. More options are available with dconf-editor under org.gnome.nautilus.

Desktop Management

Nautilus, by default, no longer controls your background/desktop in gnome-shell. If you like having icons on your desktop or enjoy the neat click-and-drag rectangle when you're bored, you can easily configure nautilus to handle the desktop.

Install the package gnome-tweak-tool and run it. Click on the "Desktop" list item, and click the "Have file manager handle the desktop" slider to "on". You may have to restart nautilus by running killall nautilus; nautilus or if you are running Gnome, press ALT+F2, type r, and press Enter.

Change default item view

You can change the default view for the items by setting the default-folder-viewer variable, e.g. for the list view:

$ gsettings set org.gnome.nautilus.preferences default-folder-viewer 'list-view'

Remove folders from the places sidebar

The displayed folders are specified in ~/.config/user-dirs.dirs and can be altered with any editor. An execution of xdg-user-dirs-update will change them again, thus it may be advisable to set the file permissions to read-only.

Always show text-entry location

The standard Nautilus toolbar shows a button bar interface for path navigation. To enter path locations using the keyboard, you must expose the location text-entry field. This is done by pressing Ctrl+l

To make the location text-entry field always present, use gsettings as shown.

$ gsettings set org.gnome.nautilus.preferences always-use-location-entry true

Note: After changing this setting, you will not be able to expose the button bar. Only when the setting is false can both forms of location navigation be employed.

Plugins

Some programs can add extra functionality to Nautilus. Here are a few packages in the official repositories that do just that.

• Nautilus Actions — Configures programs to be launched when files are selected in Nautilus

http://www.nautilus-actions.org/ || nautilus-actions

• Nautilus Terminal — Terminal embedded in Nautilus. It is always open in the current folder, and follows the navigation.

http://projects.flogisoft.com/nautilus-terminal/ || nautilus-terminal

• Open in Terminal — A nautilus plugin for opening terminals in arbitrary local paths

http://ftp.gnome.org/pub/GNOME/sources/nautilus-open-terminal || nautilus-open-terminal

• Send to Menu — Nautilus context menu for sending files.

http://download.gnome.org/sources/nautilus-sendto/ || nautilus-sendto

• Sound Converter — Nautilus extension to convert audio files formats

http://code.google.com/p/nautilus-sound-converter/ || nautilus-soundconverter

• Seahorse Nautilus — PGP encryption and signing for nautilus

http://git.gnome.org/browse/seahorse-nautilus/ || seahorse-nautilus

Nautilus 3.6 create an empty document

Gnome 3.6 brings new changes to Nautilus. Some features are dropped in favour of easy maintainence of Nautilus. Creating an empty document option has been removed from the default menu in Nautilus. One has to create a ~/Templates/ folder in your home folder and place an empty file inside the folder through your favourite Terminal by touch ~/Templates/new or by using any other file manager. Restart nautilus to get back the function of creating an empty document from Nautilus menu.

Nautilis 3.6 use delete key to move to trash

By default Nautilus now no longer uses the delete key to move files to trash. If you want to get that feature back make the following changes in ~/.config/nautilus/accels:

- ; (gtk_accel_path "<Actions>/DirViewActions/Trash" "<Primary>Delete")
+ (gtk_accel_path "<Actions>/DirViewActions/Trash" "Delete")

Troubleshooting

Nautilus can't browse my windows network shares

Nautilus relies on gvfs-smb for this functionality, it can be Installed from the Official Repositories

Nautilus can't browse my apple network shares

Nautilus relies on gvfs-afp and avahi for this functionality, they can be Installed from the Official Repositories. Note that in addition to installing avahi, it needs to be started too, using

systemctl start avahi-daemon

and/or

systemctl enable avahi-daemon

Nautilus is no longer the default file manager

If some applications such as firefox among other refuses to take Nautilus as the default file manager, can be solved adding the following line under [Default Applications] section in ~/.local/share/applications/mimeapps.list:

inode/directory=nautilus.desktop