GNOME/Files

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

• File Manager Actions — Configures programs to be launched when files are selected in Nautilus (written in C)

https://gitlab.gnome.org/GNOME/filemanager-actions || filemanager-actions

Tip: This extension works only with these icon-themes which contain additional colored icons, eg:
numix-icon-theme-git^AUR, vibrancy-colors^AUR, humanity-icon-theme^AUR, mint-x-icons^AUR

• Nautilus Metadata Editor — Nautilus extension with simple Metadata Editor for the following mime types: audio/x-mp3, audio/x-flac, audio/x-vorbis+ogg, audio/x-speex+ogg, audio/x-musepack, audio/x-wavpack, audio/x-tta, audio/x-aiff, audio/m4a, video/mp4, video/x-ms-asf (written in C and Vala)

https://gitlab.com/nvlgit/nautilus-metadata-editor-extension || nautilus-metadata-editor^AUR

• Nautilus Wipe — Nautilus extension to provide wiping integration (written in C)

https://wipetools.tuxfamily.org/nautilus-wipe.html || nautilus-wipe^AUR

The following applications install their own extensions by default, thus providing integration with Nautilus:

• GNOME Terminal — The GNOME Terminal Emulator — The application includes a "Terminal Nautilus" extension (written in C)

https://wiki.gnome.org/Apps/Terminal || gnome-terminal

• Tilix — A tiling terminal emulator for GNU/Linux using GTK+ 3 — The application includes an extension for Nautilus which adds an "Open in Tilix" option to the context menu (written in Python)

https://github.com/gnunn1/tilix || tilix

Some extensions for GNOME Files, although free, might rely on non-free software. The following list provides a few examples:

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

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

To sort files in all folders by type:

$ gsettings set org.gnome.nautilus.preferences default-sort-order 'type'

The displayed folders are specified in 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.

The standard Files 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

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

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

See File manager functionality#Thumbnail previews.

Sometimes video thumbnails are not shown. To solve it (as mentioned in No video thumbnails on nautilus), you must install ffmpegthumbnailer, , , and remove the content of .

To get this option one has to create a folder in your home folder and place an empty file inside the folder through your favorite Terminal by or by using any other file manager. Then just restart Files.

On non-English installations, the templates directory might have another name. One can find the actual directory with .

The templates directory can be configured in the file:

XDG_TEMPLATES_DIR="$HOME/some/path"

Like most other file managers GNOME Files hides files with names starting with a dot by default.

GNOME Files additionally hides files when their names are listed in a .hidden file in the same directory (one filename per line). See for an extension that facilitates adding/removing entries from such .hidden files.

If you are using terminal you can easily add "Open in Tilix" option to the context menu of GNOME Files by installing its optional dependency .

To add a folder to your bookmarks, simply press when you have the folder opened in Nautilus. Note that the list of bookmarks is shared with other GNOME-based graphical file managers (e.g. Nemo), so a folder added or removed from one will affect the bookmarks seen in the other.

Scripts placed in ~/.local/share/nautilus/scripts can be run from the right click context menu of a file.

The context menu can also be organized into subfolders, e.g. and .

Scripts have access to the following environment variables:

NAUTILUS_SCRIPT_SELECTED_FILE_PATHS
NAUTILUS_SCRIPT_SELECTED_URIS
NAUTILUS_SCRIPT_CURRENT_URI
NAUTILUS_SCRIPT_WINDOW_GEOMETRY

Some example scripts:

Keybinds to execute scripts can be assigned in the ~/.config/nautilus/scripts-accels file:

; Example Keybinds
; Modifiers: <Control> <Alt> <Shift>
F4 open-terminal-here
<Alt>x remove-extension

This can be caused by the file association for directories being reset. Installing tends to do this.

To solve this, open Files, right-click on a folder, and choose Open With Other Application > Files > Select. This will set the association for directories back to Files.

If this does not solve the issue, see File manager functionality#Directories are not opened in the file manager.

In case you have installed in your system, the problem might be caused by its file sharing module. Deactivate file sharing, and it should stop happening.

You may be missing one or more of the following packages:

Install them and you should be good to go.