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Jonathan Webber
Asked: 2018-10-09 05:20:48 +0800 CST

How to sort search-results in Nautilus?

  • 772

After upgrading to 18.04, I find that the File Manager will not allow sorting (date, type, name etc) after a search. It does allow sorts prior to a search.

This change is not an improvement.

nautilus files sort 18.04

3 Answers

  1. 1. Krusader

    While Nautilus is the default file manager, there exist other like Krusader file manager.

    • It can be installed with 

      sudo apt-get install krusader

    • Open with Super+A, and enter krusader and than Enter. It provides a powerful search gui, eg sorting the search-results.

    • If you want to set Krusader as the default file manager, run this command in Terminal:

      xdg-mime default krusader.desktop inode/directory application/x-gnome-saved-search
gsettings set org.gnome.desktop.background show-desktop-icons false

      To test that change type 

      xdg-open $HOME

    • To revert this enter

      xdg-mime default nautilus.desktop inode/directory application/x-gnome-saved-search
gsettings set org.gnome.desktop.background show-desktop-icons true

    enter image description here

    2. Nemo

    • It can be installed with 

      sudo apt-get install nemo

    • Open with Super+A, and enter nemo and than Enter. It provides a powerful search gui, eg sorting the search-results.

    • If you want to set Nemo as the default file manager, run this command in Terminal:

      xdg-mime default nemo.desktop inode/directory application/x-gnome-saved-search
gsettings set org.gnome.desktop.background show-desktop-icons false

      To test that change type 

      xdg-open $HOME

    • To revert this enter

      xdg-mime default nautilus.desktop inode/directory application/x-gnome-saved-search
gsettings set org.gnome.desktop.background show-desktop-icons true

    enter image description here

    • 6

  2. You need to click on the drop down icon on the right of the text searched.

    screenshot

    For sorting from the columns that appears not to be the default settings anymore. As of now the bug is reported here.

    You can try other file managers like Thunar or PCMan File Manager which may offer same functionality.

    • 4

  3. Allowing sorting was removed from Nautilus, and instead replace by sorting for "relevance" without a clear idea of what that means. See: https://gitlab.gnome.org/GNOME/nautilus/issues/209 and https://gitlab.gnome.org/GNOME/nautilus/issues/374 and https://bugzilla.gnome.org/show_bug.cgi?id=778484

    As with other suggestions, the only way to have this functionality is to replace nautilus with another file manager. Caja is a good option (default in Mate desktop, fork of Nautilus from Gnome 2), and also has caja extensions (apt-cache search caja-).

    • 4