Nautilus is the graphical file manager (along with a few other nice features) in GNOME. Most users only use the bare minimum features of Nautilus (including me, as I’m mainly a console jockey) and don’t realize how powerful and flexible Nautilus truly is.
- Managing Nautilus from the keyboard
- Advanced file permissions
- Desktop Settings
- Special locations and Remote connections
- Tips and Tricks
Managing Nautilus from the keyboard
You don’t have to be slowed down by the mouse just because you are using a GUI. Nautilus has great keyboard shortcuts that will allow you to use it quickly and effectively.
Here is a quick table of the shortcut keys and their functionality
| Key(s) | Action |
|---|---|
| Searching | |
| Start Typing | Select the matching name of a file or directory |
| CTRL+F | Search filenames and content of indexed files |
| CTRL+S | Selects all files or directories matching a pattern |
| Display and Window Management | |
| CTRL+N | Create a new Nautilus window |
| CTRL+W | Close a Nautilus window |
| CTRL+SHIFT+W | Close all Nautilus windows |
| CTRL+1 | View files in icon mode |
| CTRL+2 | View files in list mode |
| F9 | Toggle sidebar pane |
| File Management | |
| CTRL+H | Show hidden files |
| CTRL+SHIFT+N | Create a new folder |
| CTRL+T or Del | Delete the file or directory and move to the trash |
| Shift+Del | Delete the selected file or directory and skip the trash |
| F2 | Rename the selected file or directory |
| Alt+Enter | View properties of the selected file or directory |
| Movement | |
| CTRL+L | Move into the location bar |
| Alt+HOME | Go to your $HOME folder |
| * or + or SHIFT+RArrow | Expand Directory in list view |
| - or SHIFT+LArrow | Close Directory in list view |
| ALT+LArrow | Browse through files and folders to the left |
| ALT+RArrow | Browse through files and folders to the right |
| ALT+UArrow | Move to the parent folder one level above |
| ALT+DArrow | Open the selected file or folder |
| Accessibility | |
| CTRL++ | Zoom in |
| CTRL+- | Zoom out |
| CTRL+0 | Normal zoom |
Advanced file permissions
The default UI for managing file permissions in Nautilus is a simple cutdown version that I find hard to use compared to the “advanced” view. Here is a screenshot of the advanced view:
Enable this view by changing the gconf setting show_advanced_permissions in /apps/nautilus/preferences/ to True, either by using gconftool-2 in console or the GUI tool gconf-editor.
gconftool-2 –type bool –set /apps/nautilus/preferences/show_advanced_permissions True
Desktop Settings
The default icons that show up on your desktop are also managed through gconf. Here are some of the important settings:
Disable the desktop completely (don’t show any desktop icons)
gconftool-2 –set /apps/nautilus/preferences/show_desktop –type bool False
Hide the $HOME folder icon
gconftool-2 –set /apps/nautilus/desktop/home_icon_visible –type bool False
Display the computer icon
gconftool-2 –set /apps/nautilus/desktop/computer_icon_visible –type bool True
Hide the trash icon
gconftool-2 –set /apps/nautilus/desktop/trash_icon_visible –type bool False
Hide volumes (sshfs mounts, auto mounted removable disks, etc)
gconftool-2 –set /apps/nautilus/desktop/volumes_visible –type bool False
Special locations and Remote connections
Nautilus provides some special locations which provide additional functionality, they can be accessed from the “go” menu or by typing them in the location bar.
- computer:/// – A list of all mounted devices on the system
- burn:/// – Allows you to copy files to it and burn them to a CD/DVD
- network:/// – A list of servers on the network
You can also access remote file systems from nautilus using ssh, sftp, and samba. You can do this by using the protocol in the address bar (ssh://,smb://,sftp://), like:
sftp://user@server:port/directory/on/server
Or you can use a very convenient UI from File -> Connect to server. Here is a screenshot of that in action:
Tips and Tricks
Preview audio files
You can preview sounds in Nautilus by turning on Edit -> Preferences -> Preview -> Preview sound files. With this enabled, when you hover over any audio file, it’ll start playing.
You can also enable/disable this setting through gconf
gconftool-2 –type bool –set /apps/nautilus/preferences/preview_sound True
Custom scripts
Nautilus allows us to create our own custom scripts and have them execute from the right click menu, lets create an open as root menu item. In ~/.gnome2/nautilus-scripts/ create a file called “Open as Root” with the following code in it:
#!/bin/bash
for uri in $NAUTILUS_SCRIPT_SELECTED_URIS; do
gnomesu gnome-open “$uri”
done
And now you’ll get a menu similar to:
Document Templates
If you’ve ever right clicked on your desktop, you have probably seen the menu “Create Document” but never gave it any thought because the majority of distros ship this menu blank. But I’ve found it is really handy when working with files with similar content. To create your own templates you create the folder ~/Templates and place any type of file inside there, it could be an open office spread sheet or a simple text file. You can download a collection of nice default templates from here. Here is what your menu could look like!
Conclusion
This should get you started on using Nautilus more effectively. If you want to learn more about Nautilus settings and other options you can tweak, you should check out the Nautilus gconf documentation here.
This work, unless otherwise expressly stated, is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 United States License.
19 Comments
1. Livio replies at 22nd July 2008 um 12:51 pm :
~/Templates? What a clutter in ~/!
Nautilus should have option to place it in a hidden folder…
Like ~/.config/nautilus/templates or ~/.nautilus/templates…
2. orzeu replies at 22nd July 2008 um 4:19 pm :
You can still hide the Template folder, just put a “.hidden” file with the name of the folder You want to hide. AFAIR this works only in Nautilus that You can’t see a folder with the name specified in this .hidden file.
3. orzeu replies at 22nd July 2008 um 4:22 pm :
sorry, I forgot the details, You put the .hidden file in Your Home dir
details in comments as found here: http://brainstorm.ubuntu.com/idea/1850/
4. Rui replies at 22nd July 2008 um 4:33 pm :
When you say:
”
Start Typing Select the matching name of a file or directory
”
You could expand on it by saying that when you have a string on the entry and you use up arrow or down arrow, the selected item will be from those which start by that string.
Also typing “/” is the same as CTRL+L but will put a “/” in the location bar instead of the current folder.
Nice initiative here. At least the quick reference keys table could probably be included in nautilus’ help. If you consider submitting it please tell us of the bugzilla #.
5. pacho replies at 23rd July 2008 um 3:04 am :
Fixing:
http://bugzilla.gnome.org/show_bug.cgi?id=312468
would allow most distributions to provide templates
6. www.ubuntukungfu.org&hellip replies at 23rd July 2008 um 3:30 am :
Cool Nautilus tricks and tips…
Written for SUSE linux but still 100% relevant to Ubuntu or any GNOME distro…
7. 6205 replies at 23rd July 2008 um 4:10 am :
What i am missin in openSUSE Nautilus are location bar buttons for Zooming and switching between Icon and List views.
http://img508.imageshack.us/my.php?image=obrazovkaop5.png
IMO if this was removed in build process so this was very bad decission
8. Kalle Persson » Blo&hellip replies at 23rd July 2008 um 5:04 am :
[...] Nautilus tips and tricks Since I’m a heavy user of shortcuts, the shortcut table shown in this article will prove useful. [...]
9. Nautilus Tips and Tricks &hellip replies at 23rd July 2008 um 10:03 am :
[...] Read more at openSUSE Tutorials [...]
10. grigio replies at 23rd July 2008 um 3:38 pm :
Have you tried Nautilus-actions?
http://www.grumz.net/?q=configlist
11. sontek replies at 23rd July 2008 um 3:42 pm :
@grigio I’ve seen it but it was my understanding that it is no longer maintained, is that not the case?
12. Alex Railean replies at 25th July 2008 um 8:28 am :
Nice list, great post! I was wondering how to enable the ‘play on hover’ feature just the other day.
I also didn’t know about “ssh://” and the likes.
In othet words, this story was very helpful, thank you.
13. Federico Mena-Quintero: T&hellip replies at 30th July 2008 um 3:48 am :
[...] has posted a great little tutorial on Nautilus tips and tricks. Life-savers for me: the list of keyboard shortcuts and enabling the “advanced [...]
14. Trucos para Nautilus (I) &hellip replies at 26th August 2008 um 12:40 am :
[...] Opensuse Tutorials Etiquetas: Gnome, nautilus, [...]
15. Trucos para Nautilus (II)&hellip replies at 31st August 2008 um 1:27 pm :
[...] openSUSE Tutorials Etiquetas: Gnome, nautilus, [...]
16. Boycott Novell » Do&hellip replies at 13th September 2008 um 10:21 am :
[...] OpenSUSE blog also marks the birth of the “openSUSE Tutorials” Web Site, which has this about Nautilus. Nautilus is the graphical file manager (along with a few other nice features) in [...]
17. korn replies at 8th October 2008 um 1:48 am :
hey man i got a question im new on linux n im so stupid lol i dont know how to to even install a program n i wanna install my sound car i got a sound blaster by creative i already download the tar file n red the readme file but still dont know how to install it id dont know if u can help me with it
18. jm_zz replies at 25th December 2008 um 3:08 pm :
just for Nautilus as root it is just :
gnomesu nautilus
19. michel replies at 11th January 2009 um 1:24 pm :
I’m willing to move on linux but my problem is most of my drivers and softwares wont work on it. How can i solve this thank you
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