How to open a terminal from Nautilus

When using Files (aka Nautilus), have you ever wanted to quickly open a terminal to run a command at the current location? The gnome-terminal-nautilus add-on for Nautilus provides a right-click context menu item to quickly open a new gnome-terminal window in the current location.

gif of the nautilus terminal add-on in action

This little tweak to the nautilus interface is super handy for those times when you need to run a quick command over some files that you are looking at in the graphical file browser.

Installing gnome-terminal-nautilus

This add-on can be installed via the Software application in Fedora Workstation. Simply locate the Files (Nautilus) entry in Software, and scroll down to the Add-ons section. Click the checkbox next to Terminal Plugin for Files to install the add-on:

Alternatively, if you are more comfortable with the command-line, install the add-on with the following DNF command:

sudo dnf install gnome-terminal-nautilus

After installation, the Open in Terminal option should appear in the right click context menu in Files. If it does not appear after installation, force Nautilus to close by running

nautilus -q

in your terminal, then reopen Nautilus.

Fedora Project community

28 Comments

  1. Lokesh Krishna

    Very handy but why isn’t this just enabled by default? I’ve taken it for granted in so many file explorers that it is surprising to learn that it has to be installed in Nautilus.

    • Drumsman

      Yep, late implementation </3

    • antikythera

      the need for a tutorial or installation of an add-on in the first instance to bring back what should be readily available functionality for a workstation desktop environment file manager seems ludicrous to put it politely as possible

      gnome devs really need to stop and focus on real world work flow rather than aesthetics for once. the increased number of extensions and add-ons that users need to load in to make it a user interface again is getting silly.

    • agoodfriend

      The packager, can add a simple “Recommends: gnome-terminal-nautilus” … and it will installed if exist in repositories…

  2. DonPedro

    Why gui tips refers ‘mostly’ to gnome?

    • It’s Fedora’s most popular desktop offering.

      • antikythera

        it won’t remain the most popular for long if gnome default configuration continues to be stripped of features so users are reliant on extensions or add-ons to bring them back. where do they get the metrics to indicate usage patterns from? it would make fascinating reading to hear more about the decision process behind what is kept and what is removed each release.

        • DonPedro

          No biggy man. But that’s true. I think that it would be nice to even make a fork and implement all that add-ons/plugins nonsense and make gnome a little bit less greedy for hardware resources. Gnome devs don’t see a need for usable de. And the look idea is also lacking some rational approach. There is a lack of many basic feature that even simples de should ship with.

        • DonPedro

          I put my comment here also as it probably will also be removed:

          “There are some very useful add-ons for Gnome 3.x This add-on for nautilus is a must have.”

          Just like eunuchs were useful to Emperor of China.

          I see that my previous posts were removed. I wonder why? Cuz I was bashing Gnome3? An castrated de? Few word of truth and people remove your comment. Talking ’bout false media nowadays.

          Putting gnome3 as a default desktop is like selling a car without brakes, windows and wheels. Or laundry machine without power cable and a button that starts laundry program.

          Hey. Here you go. We are offering innovative – read pre-configured shortcut suit – desktop environment. It has many feature. And among the is the most popular one. If you need something write it for yourself. Just put that on workstations where ladies with windows experience use mouse a lot. A documentary could do for a good comedy show. Seeing all that faces full of consternation.

          Since when impoverish = innovative or intuitive?

          • Hi DonPedro,

            You are welcome to voice your opinions here, your previous comment was not removed because of your opinion, but because it contained content that was unsuitable for the Fedora Magazine. Please keep in mind that we all need to be respectful of all members of the Fedora Community.

            regards,
            ryanlerch

            • DonPedro

              Thx for reply Ryan Lerch. I will try to keep that in mind.
              But still it doesn’t says much about the respect issue you write about.

              I have a question. Is tweak tool still not included on installation image?

      • DonPedro

        It’s not because it’s most popular but it is being pushed as default because Fedora is sponsored by Red Hat.

        Each time a see default icons size or this stripped from elementary system features desktop cough cough environment I don’t know what devs have in mind working on this de. Are they assuming that I am blind so the icons has to be the size of almost quarter of the screen or do they think that I am so stupid so they remove features to not let me broke my system?

        It’s good that there are spins with other des.
        But still I will be watching closely how development goes. As there is so much to fix in it. And I don’t even want to refer how heavy on hardware resources it is. Even KDE is lighter nowadays.

  3. There is also tilix-nautilus for the people who use tilix; it even offers “Open Remote Tilix” option for sftp mounts in nautilus.

  4. Edward

    I installed gnome-terminal-nautilus on Fedora 24, but I’m not able to see the option in Files. I tried the nautilus -q, log out and back in and finally a reboot, but none worked. Any suggestions!!

    I assume this is available for Fedora 24 since it wasn’t specified to which version it is supported on.

    • Philip

      Right-click on a directory/folder, you should see it among the options. This has been around for a while, long before F24.

      • Edward

        Still don’t have the option. I installed with “dnf install gnome-terminal-nautilus”. Install showed no problem. As mentioned before stopping nautilus didn’t work and I re-started the system still with no joy.

  5. Step Schwarz

    Handy; installed!

  6. wk3

    I have the “software” applet open, but it sure doesn’t look anything like the image given under “Installing…”

    Found it! First choose “Nautilus” (even though it says “installed”). This makes the screen appear like that shown. Then by scrolling way down, there is the checkboxen shown. Clicking on one causes a prompt for the root password.

    Counter-intuitively, there is no “ok” or “do it now” button. Clicking the checkbox causes it to install without any further interaction.

  7. Leslie Satenstein

    There are some very useful add-ons for Gnome 3.x This add-on for nautilus is a must have.

    When I right clicked with Nautilus active i discovered just how many mouse clicks this add-on will save. I don’t have to worry about carpal tunnel problems as much. (:

    Must useful nautilus extension. Thank you to whoever wrote it.

  8. Evgenii Frolov

    Great add-on! Always use it.

  9. Vitalii Plagov

    Is it zsh on the gif?

  10. Oleg

    Will it conflict if one has Dropbox installed( nautilus-dropbox 2015.10.28) ?

    Thanks,

  11. SFC

    Nice. Thanks

  12. Jeroen

    I like this extension very much, but their use is limited if you like to browse your files in list view. You have to find a blank space or to right-click if you want to ope a terminal in the current folder. If the folder contains more than about 10 files, the list fills the window and there’s no blank space left to right-click.

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