The Files application (aka Nautilus) is getting a major update in Fedora 25 Workstation. Fedora 25 is slated to include Nautilus 3.22, adding a new GUI interface for batch renaming of files, and will also add integrated archive support. GNOME Developer Carlos Soriano has blogged in depth about all the new features in Nautilus 3.22, including some additional features that might be included in the future. OMG! Ubuntu! also has a great writeup if you want to learn more about the new features.
Trying Nautilus 3.22 on Fedora 24
To give these new features a test-run, you can try them out by installing a pre-release version of Fedora 25 workstation. Alternatively, you can use Flatpak to try out a nightly build of Nautilus 3.22 directly from the GNOME project on your current Fedora 24 Workstation install.
To do this, first install Flatpak:
sudo dnf install flatpak
Set up the GNOME-nightly Flatpak repos:
wget https://sdk.gnome.org/nightly/keys/nightly.gpg flatpak remote-add --gpg-import=nightly.gpg gnome-nightly https://sdk.gnome.org/nightly/repo/ flatpak remote-add --gpg-import=nightly.gpg gnome-nightly-apps https://sdk.gnome.org/nightly/repo-apps/
Install the runtime, the Nightly Nautilus Flatpak, and run it:
flatpak install gnome-nightly org.gnome.Platform master flatpak install gnome-nightly-apps org.gnome.Nautilus master flatpak run org.gnome.Nautilus
Luya Tshimbalanga
About time. That was one of the most requested features especially for photographers.
Leslie Satenstein
Ryan
I was devastated when, following Gnome2 (around Fedora21), nautilus had many convenient features removed.
Gradually, with each new release of Gnome, the features and some new ones have been presented. Now it is very much a “Wow!! file browser, manipulation tool”.
One feature that is still missing that I wish was returned early on, was the ability to hover the mouse over an icon of a mounted drive, right mouse button click, and unmount that drive. Now I have to use the extension that was written, or launch Nautilus, search for the mounted drive on the left column, and issue the unmount instruction.
A new recent nautilus feature that I appreciate is the left column view, with an explosion of the home directory and the breakout until the “+ Other locations”. Between the last of the home folders and the “+ Other locations” is a frequently used Bookmark listing area. This listing area is invaluable to reducing mouse clicks. But its at the end of the home directory listing, instead of preceding it.
If I frequently use /tmp and ~/Downloads, it makes sense that I bookmark these two. Its bookmark saves me a few scroll operations. But if the bookmarks were located first in the column I would save even more. Hopefully, a preferences option to relocate bookmarks makes it to a further release.
All in all, Nautilus is becoming the boy-scout pocket knife of file managers. Much much appreciate the recent improvements.
Thank you
antisec
flatpak install gnome-nightly-apps org.gnome.Nautilus master
1 delta parts, 4 loose fetched; 13145 KiB transferred in 727 seconds
error: org.gnome.Nautilus branch master already installed
[root@ANTISEC ~]# flatpak run org.gnome.Nautilus
error: No systemd user session available, sandboxing not available
:/ please help me.
Miguel
This is useful for those not comfortable with perl rename…
liam
While I’m very grateful for this feature, I wonder why regex, or at least shell globbing, wasn’t included, as osx Finder offers a more powerful version of this.
If linux can’t compete on features, what are we left with?
Pat McClung
Why not do a split screen option like Dolphin has? Find that very useful when I’m trying to get files put away.
Dennis
“flatpak run org.gnome.Nautilus” fails with:
(nautilus:2): Gtk-CRITICAL **: Error building template class ‘NautilusToolbar’ for an instance of type ‘NautilusToolbar’: .:193:46 Invalid property: GtkScrolledWindow.max-content-height
Alexander Larsson
Dennis:
This is a nightly build from git master, so at times it doesn’t work. Try to update it another day and try.
Justine
I just downloaded the new Nautilus as a Flatpak and took it for a short test drive. I like the change in the view switcher. Now the button toggles between icon view and list view with a single click. Very nice! Decompressing an archive simply by double clicking it seems strange to me, but I suppose it makes sense. It’s never really a good experience browsing through a compressed archive anyway.
Unfortunately, the Flatpak app is completely unusable! I followed the instructions above, and it can browse my filesystem just fine, but it can’t open any files (!) in another application. This might be a problem with Flatpak. Also, Files (Nightly) has entirely erased the default Files launcher from the app launcher. Even if I try to explicitly run /usr/bin/nautilus, it brings up the nightly version with the same problems. The only way to get it back is to uninstall the Flatpak app and restart the session by logging out and back in.
Alexander Larsson
Justine:
Yes, flatpak sandboxes the app so it can’t e.g. browse the host /usr, or start apps outside the sandbox. We’re looking at ways around that for testing purposes, but generally nautilus is not a great target for flatpak for this reason.
Alexander Larsson
antisec:
You need to be running a desktop with systemd –user for full sandboxing to work. If you just want to test this though, you can “flatpak run –no-desktop org.gnome.Nautilus”. However, thats not a great workaround as it makes the sandbox less secure.
We’re looking for other ways to set up a cgroup without requiring root privileges, but for now systemd –user is the only known way.
Chad
I have installed it on Fedora 24. Now how do I uninstall it ?
Rolf Adams
I want to have my old nautilus back. Please help
Leslie Satenstein
Me too.
I am surprised that your posting was not removed by the moderator. There can be no constructive criticism and by asking for the return of the previous version, you are criticizing the current offering.
By the way, there are some good features in the new version. Bookmarks is one, the return of the delete permanently option is another.
Too many clicks of the mouse to do things such as looking at /tmp., or visiting a directory other than ~ (home)
nill
flatpak uninstall org.gnome.Nautilus
John Williams
Thanks for this great work, I really appreciate your efforts and am excited about flatpak. However, when I follow these instructions to the letter, I get Nautilus 3.21.91.1. The feature where you can batch rename files by using metadata does not seem to be available in this version, rather in version 22. Can anyone tell me if a flatpak is available for this version, or do I have to build it from source?
Thanks again, and looking forward to an excitingly sandboxed future,
John
liam
While I’m very grateful for this feature, I wonder why regex, or at least shell globbing, wasn’t included, as osx Finder offers a more powerful version of this.
If linux can’t compete on features, what are we left with?
PS: ok, I’m not sure why clicking on https://fedoramag.wpengine.com/batch-file-renaming-integrated-archive-support-added-nautilus/#respond caused my comment to be appended to Miguel’s.
Justin W. Flory
Hi Liam! Not sure why your comment was coming through – it appears many people had this issue. If you have issues with this in the future, please reach out to the Magazine team on our mailing list so we can try to fix the problem sooner. Thanks for your patience!