I'd say the quickest way is to press Ctrl+L, then you can copy it (Ctrl+C).

Ctrl+L. Very frustrating to not find an option in the View menu (which should then be clearly labeled Ctrl+L). Had to do a web search.

And then very frustrating to find that Ctrl+L doesn't toggle it back. Another web search... Drum roll... Esc

And then, how to set your preference? Web search... Have to install gconf-editor or dconf-editor or manually use a terminal command:

gsettings set org.gnome.nautilus.preferences always-use-location-entry true

http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=1504058

Of course, this would be a little less painful if there were a 'terminal here' option in the context menu. Web search... Install nautilus-open-terminal

How do I open a terminal in the current location?

Sigh. Oversimplified interfaces are so hard to figure out. I appreciate all the helpful answers people have put on the web for us to find.

May I ask why you want the path?

If you want the path because you want to use it and navigate directly from the terminal, then you can simply install nautilus-open-terminal using synaptic.

Or

sudo apt-get install nautilus-open-terminal

After that, simply right click on any folder and use "Open in terminal"

If you simply want the path, then Ctrl + L would do just fine.

Copy the file or folder. When you paste on terminal or text editor, it will paste the path, not the file or folder.

You can use a Nautilus script:

Paste

#!/bin/bash
echo -n "${PWD}" | xclip -selection clipboard

into ~/.local/share/nautilus/scripts/Copy Directory Path.

(requires that xclip is installed)

You can now right-click on a file, mouse over "Scripts", and choose "Copy Directory Path" to copy the path of the directory that contains the file. _{Caveat: will not work in an empty directory.}

Explanation

• echo -n "${PWD}": Echoes the current working directory (Nautilus sets the working directory of the script to the one you had open in the window from which you ran the script) without a trailing newline. Initially I considered pwd | head -c -1, since pwd includes a trailing newline, but that was two unnecessary calls to external programs compared to echo.
• xclip -selection clipboard: xclip by default copies to the X11 "primary" clipboard, but most desktop environments use the "clipboard" clipboard for their clipboard. _{I can't believe I just wrote that}

Navigate to the GO menu and choose Location....

You can also type into your terminal gconftool-2 --type=Boolean --set apps/nautilus/preferences/always_use_location_entry true so that you always get a text based location bar.

Additional to the answer of Nonny Moose, you can create, and use a Shortcut for copy to the clipboard the Path to your file/folder. Thus, you select a folder or a file in Nautilus, and then press a shortcut, and you will have you Path to that folder/file in the Clipboard ready to be pasted.

You can do in the following manner:

1. Install Xclip: $ sudo apt install xclip

2. Create and save a script in ~/.local/share/nautilus/scripts as follow:

   • Name of the file: Nautilus-Copy-Path
   • Content:

     #!/bin/sh
     echo -n "${PWD}" | xclip -selection clipboard
     

   • Make this file an executable file. (Risght click -> properties -> permissions -> Alow executing file as program)

3. Create the following file in /home/user_name/.config/nautilus

   • Name of the file: scripts-accels
   • Content: Note that F6 is the shortcut you want to assign to run this script, space and then the name of the script you want to run, in this case the file name you just have created in the previous step.

     F6 Nautilus-Copy-Path
     

   • Make it executable

4. Restart Nautilus