Best File Manager

By +longgonebn
in Linux

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Grand Master

+longgonebn Subscriber²

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Yup, another question.

So as you can guess my question is what's the best file manager for Ubuntu?

For awhile now I have been using Marlin, but at times it seems unstable.

Tabbed browsing, customization of layout and options, and the most updated.

Suggestions?

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Karl L.

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Personally, I'm a huge fan of Nautilus. It has tabbed browsing (File->New Tab or CTRL+T), allows some layout customization (particularly if you're willing to edit more advanced settings in dconf), and has a large selection of plugins available. In Ubuntu, you can view the available Nautilus plugins with Aptitude (aptitude search '^nautilus-') or by searching for "nautilus" in Synaptic Package Manager.

If I had to choose another file manager, though, it would definitely be PCManFM.

Grand Master

Max Norris

Posted
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For me it's Dolphin. Extremely customizable, tabbed/split view browsing, plugins, all that good stuff. No dumbing it down and yet fairly obvious how to work with it. Purty too. Not being GTK based may be a turnoff though, I'm a bit biased towards KDE.

Edit: Forgot Nemo, a fork of Nautilus. The Mint guys weren't happy with where Nautilus was going so they forked it. Brought back some of the removed features, etc.

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Karl L.

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Although its not my first choice, Dolphin is an excellent file manager! Ultimately, one's choice of file manager comes down to personal preference anyway.

If you want to set Dolphin as your system-wide default file manager, you can edit /usr/share/applications/defaults.list and replace inode/directory=nautilus.desktop with inode/directory=dolphin.desktop, then reboot, of course. (sudo gedit /usr/share/applications/defaults.list is likely the command you want to run to edit that file.)

Grand Master

ViperAFK

Posted
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Unless anyone has anymore to suggest I think we have a clear winner.

Dolphin is amazing! The smoothness, customization of everything...look and feel. Wow!

Thanks guys.

Yeah dolphin is pretty great. I tend to not be the hugest fan of KDE, but dolphin is a file manager done right.

Grand Master

Max Norris

Posted
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Anyone know if it's possible to change the theme for Dolphin inside Ubuntu Unity?

That's the drawback of using KDE stuff in GTK based desktops, two different things running. It is possible, haven't done this myself in quite a while (I went all KDE myself long ago), and not sure how accurate this still is, but... (comments say it works with Unity as well.)

http://www.webupd8.o...-native-in.html

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Max Norris

Posted
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It's XFCE based, so probably would have the same issue as Dolphin being KDE. Though I don't know that for sure.

Nah, Dolphi's one of a very small handful that uses QT, the rest primarily GTK, including Thunar. Not a fan of Thunar myself, kind of lacking on features, but that's opinion of course, judge for yourself.

Grand Master

Nothing Here

Posted
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Here's a few more you might want to play around with:

  • andromeda ? (QtDesktop)
  • Double Commander ? powerful double panel cross platform file manager, written in Object Pascal / Lazarus, which uses couple of toolkits for UI includes Qt
  • qtfm ? Tabbed FM with Bookmarks support
  • hamsimanager ? Hamsi Manager is a file manager,renamer,id3 tagger,information changer ,.... tool.
  • Dino ? an easy to use and powerful file manager. Includes a built in text editor.

Grand Master

+Majesticmerc MVC

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I use Thunar myself. I don't need much from my file browser. As long as it lets me browse my file system and devices, and lets me open terminal prompts, that's enough for me.

I've never used Dolphin (never been a fan of KDE), but I've heard very good things.

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