After Nemo File Manager yesterday, now we bring you Nautilus here. Nautilus is predecessor for big file managers in Linux such as Nemo and Caja. We need to explain Nautilus in Ubuntu in one article. We hope this will help new users in Ubuntu. Enjoy.
Overview
1. Toolbar (back and forward buttons).
2. Address bar.
3. Search button.
4. View buttons.
5. Sidebar.
6. Main area.
Concepts
- Nautilus is Nemo's predecessor. So they share same features. Thus, Nautilus has similar visual appearance with Mac OS X Finder.
- Recent Nautilus doesn't have F3 (Split View) anymore.
- Nautilus in Ubuntu doesn't have normal Menubar, but has global menu like Finder in Mac OS X.
New Tab
To open new tab, press Ctrl+T. To close tab, press Ctrl+W.
New Folder
To create new folder, press Ctrl+Shift+N. Or, right-click on main area > New Folder.Delete Folder
To delete a folder permanently, select folder > press Shift+Delete. To delete a folder temporarily (“Recylce Bin”), select folder > press Delete without Shift.Address Bar
Nautilus has breadcrumb address bar by default. Every folder of path represented as a button. To reveal normal address bar, press Ctrl+L. To revert back to breadcrumb again, press Esc.
Places
Nautilus sidebar (Left Panel) shows you your Home folders such as Desktop, Downloads, Documents, etc. It consists of your folders, your partitions, and network browsing facilities. It is similar with left panel on Finder or Explorer.
Tree View
Nautilus doesn't have left panel tree view like Explorer or even Nemo. But Nautilus has tree view on main area if you are using List View mode. To enable this, open menu Edit > Preferences > open tab Display > check on Navigate folders in a tree.
Sort By
You may sort your files by Date, Type, Name, and Size. The most easy way to change it is by using Detail View like this. Just click on the black triangle.
Mount & Unmount
To mount a partition, just click on the partition name on Sidebar. To unmount it, just click on the black triangle icon.Hide & Show Hidden Files
To show hidden files, press Ctrl+H. To hide it again, press Ctrl+H again.Search
To search file, press Ctrl+F. To close search mode, press Esc.
Change Folder Icon
To change icon of a folder, right-click a folder > Properties > click folder icon > select icon > Open. The icon will change immediately. You will find all icons at /usr/share/icons/.