How to Make Nautilus Even More Useful in Linux

Nautilus is a sophisticated file manager that works perfectly with the GNOME desktop environment. It combines good looks with useful features without any problems. Its easy-to-use interface is appealing to the eye and works well for users of all skill levels. In this guide we showed how to Make Nautilus Even More Useful in Linux.

The clean layout makes it easy to move around, which makes managing files simple. In addition to being beautiful to look at, Nautilus is very flexible, which means that users can make it fit their needs. Its powerful plugin system makes customisation easy, letting users add new features and improve functionality without any problems.

Nautilus is great at making things easy to use, whether you’re organizing files, previewing content, or managing directories. The fact that Nautilus tries to be simple without sacrificing flexibility shows that the GNOME desktop environment is dedicated to making the user experience smooth and effective. Nautilus is a leading file management programme in the GNOME ecosystem because it is both aesthetically pleasing and flexible enough to meet the needs of a wide range of users. For get more information go to their official website.

How to Make Nautilus Even More Useful in Linux

Allow addresses for the old path

1. Open Nautilus File Manager: Launch Nautilus on your Linux system.
2. Navigate to a Folder: Go to the folder for which you want to view the full path.
3. Access Terminal: Open the terminal for the current folder. You can usually do this by right-clicking within the folder and selecting “Open Terminal” or using the terminal separately.
4. Retrieve Full Path: In the terminal, type the command pwd and press Enter. This will display the full path of the current directory.
5. Use Nautilus Shortcut: Press Ctrl + L to toggle the display of the full path in Nautilus. This key combination allows you to switch between displaying the full path and the traditional path.
6. Make Traditional Path Permanent: In a terminal, run the following command to set the traditional path permanently: gsettings set org.gnome.nautilus.preferences always-use-location-entry true
7. This command ensures that Nautilus always displays the full path.
8. Reset Nautilus Session: To apply the changes, reset your current Nautilus session by running the command: nereid -q

Make a blank text file maker

1. Open Nautilus and Navigate to Home Directory:
   • Launch Nautilus and go to your home directory.
2. Access “Templates” Folder:
   • Click the mouse and right-click on the “Templates” folder.
3. Open Terminal in “Templates” Folder:
   • Choose “Open in Terminal” from the context menu.
4. Run Command to Create New File:
   • In the terminal, enter the following command:
     ./New.txt touch
5. Verify Context Menu Option:
   • Right-click on the Nautilus window.
   • Check if the new context menu option is working correctly.
6. Test New Context Menu Option:
   • Click on “New Document.”
   • Select “Your New Blank Text File.”

Theming and Appearance Tweaks for Nautilus

Options built in:

• Nautilus Themes: You can get to Nautilus Themes by going to Edit > Preferences in Nautilus or Appearance > Themes in Gnome Control Centre. Adwaita, High Contrast, and Yaru Dark are some of the themes that come with the phone.

• Icon Themes: You can change the themes for your icons in the Gnome Control Centre (Appearance > Icons). Papirus, Numix, and Oxygen are all popular options.
• Font Customization: Change the font’s size and style in the Gnome Control Centre (Appearance > Fonts). Try out different font families and sizes to find the one that is easiest to read.

Added Changes:

• GTK Themes: Some themes change Nautilus automatically, while others may need the GTK theme to be set by hand. You can change the theme of org.gnome.desktop.interface with tools like gnome-tweaks or dconf-editor.
• Extensions for Nautilus: Look into add-ons like “Files: Folder Colour” and “Files: Compact View” to make specific changes in addition to the basic settings.
• Manual CSS Changes: To get more precise settings, make a.css file in the ~/.config/gtk-3.0/gtk.css directory and add CSS rules that target Nautilus elements. For specific selectors and properties, look at online guides.

Optimizing Nautilus for Speed and Performance

Changes to the basics:

• Getting rid of visual effects: To turn off animations that aren’t needed, go to System Settings > Appearance > Animations. For the best performance, you might want to turn off desktop effects.
• Hide icons: To clear up space and speed up rendering, go to Nautilus’s preferences and hide icon labels or icons in folders that you use often.
• Shrink the thumbnails so they take up less space: You can change the size of a Nautilus to get the best balance of performance and clarity.

Be careful when making advanced optimisations:

• Turn off GNOME Shell extensions that use a lot of resources. Check each one for any problems.
• Optimise background processes: Use “htop” or “glances” to keep an eye on how resources are being used and find processes that are affecting Nautilus. Carefully turn off the ones that aren’t needed.
• “dconf-editor” lets advanced users change GNOME Shell settings. Be careful when using it, though, because the wrong settings can damage your system. Before you go ahead with it, make sure you’re comfortable and aware of the risks.

Advanced File Searching Techniques with Nautilus

Simple Methods:

• Wildcard characters: * matches any string of characters, and? matches a single character. Any character between “proj” and “ct” in the file name will be found by “proj?ct*.”
• Use regular expressions for patterns that are more complicated. For example, [a-z0-9]+.pdf finds all PDFs whose filenames start with a letter or number. There is a lot of information about regular expressions online.
• You can join search terms together with AND, OR, and NOT. Report AND (2023 OR 2024) looks for “report” files that have 2023 or 2024 in them.

More advanced methods:

• To search for a file’s properties, press “+” in the search bar and pick “Attributes.” Sort files by size, date added or changed, owner, permissions, and other factors.
• You can search by content. Nautilus doesn’t have a direct content search feature, but the “Contains” feature under “Attributes” can help you find files that have certain text in the first few lines. You can do a deeper search with grep or ack.
• Nautilus usually looks in the current folder and its subfolders. Using the “Location” dropdown, you can search specific folders, your home directory, or the whole file system.

FAQs