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cipricus
Asked: 2020-12-03 08:30:27 +0800 CST

What GUI file managers show most details during file transfer?

  • 772

When transferring many or very large files it is annoying to just wait with very little information. I find it comforting to be able to see what is going on, even if I have to wait. That's why I would like to have something similar to what I see in Windows 10, namely:

  1. a progress bar
  2. size of file copied
  3. speed of transfer
  4. estimated time left
  5. percentage of progress
  6. a speed variation graph

enter image description here

I know that Dolphin has more details than others, but now I don't use KDE for the moment.

Note about the Windows 10 file manager: I have taken that as a benchmark in order to illustrate what would be the expected parameters. In fact Windows Explorer doesn't show all those parameters in all cases, e.g. while copying from an Android phone to the computer: it only shows progress and ETA. (I haven't noticed that kind of limitation in Linux.) Also, the size of file(s) copied vs total size (parameter no 2) is more limited in Windows than in Linux.

filemanager

3 Answers

  1. Best Answer

    Stable, very complete and very configurable, Double Commander (meant for advanced use) also has the desired parameters:

    enter image description here

    This file manager has many other features with regard to copying, like creating different queues.

    sudo apt-get install doublecmd-gtk

    or

    sudo apt-get install doublecmd-qt

    One that has the speed graph (but lacks ETA) is muCommander

    enter image description here

    Considering the default file managers:

    As said in the other answer, Dolphin, the Kde/Plasma default, provides many of those 6 parameters (1 to 4). Oddly, Dolphin seems to lack the "percentage of progress", but I think that in the past the Plasma notifications even showed a speed variation graph (6) on Dolphin transfer. (I am not aware of another Linux file manager that ever showed 6.)

    It might be a problem having Dolphin in Gnome/GTK (it comes with many KDE- dependencies. The notifications view will be absent).

    Nemo seems even more complete than Dolphin in this respect (1 to 5):

    enter image description here

    Which makes unnecessary the use of the somewhat outdated Nemo-Ultracopier

    enter image description here

    Too bad it is not possible anymore to use Ultracopier with with Nautilus, which otherwise only shows progress bar (1), speed (3) and ETA (4).

    The same is shown in PCManFM.

    Thunar and Caja only show progress bar (1) and file size (2).

    Polo file manager, although not completely developed in other aspects.

    enter image description here

    Sunflower:

    enter image description here

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  2. Notifications in KDE show all of this information when transferring files with Dolphin.

    enter image description here

    The same notifications also show this information in other contexts, like when you are downloading files from Firefox.

    If you install a whole bunch of different file managers on your existing system, you might break things in a way that could be difficult to reverse.

    Instead of that, why don't you try out some of the official flavors of Ubuntu to determine which flavor has the best features for you?

    You can "Try Ubuntu" from bootable installation media without having to affect your installed system.

    • 3

  3. spacefm opens a status pane to display most of the desired information:

    enter image description here

    Clicking that opens a new window with more details:

    enter image description here

    spacefm is available in the universe repository for all recent Ubuntu versions. Install with

    sudo apt install spacefm-gtk3    (GTK3-version) or
sudo apt install spacefm         (GTK2-Version)
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