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Thunar File Manager Review - Good, Lightweight Alternative to Nautilus

Posted by Chris7mas on · 18 comments
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Thunar is a lightweight file manager included in the Xfce desktop environment. It has a simpler interface compared to Nautilus, the default file manager which ships with GNOME. So, what are the features which come with Thunar, and what makes it a viable alternative to Nautilus? First of all, it is lighter on resources and offers less functions than its GNOME counterpart, making it a very good choice for users who don't need advanced features, and prefer speed over those. Being the default file manager in Xfce, Thunar also comes included in lighter distributions like Xubuntu, which is the Xfce-based distribution of Ubuntu. The version of Thunar I used for this review is 1.0.0, tested in GNOME 2.26.1, as they come with Ubuntu 9.04 Jaunty Jackalope.

Thunar is a lightweight file manager included in the Xfce desktop environment. It has a simpler interface compared to Nautilus, the default file manager which ships with GNOME. So, what are the features which come with Thunar, and what makes it a viable alternative to Nautilus? First of all, it is lighter on resources and offers less functions than its GNOME counterpart, making it a very good choice for users who don't need advanced features, and prefer speed over those. Being the default file manager in Xfce, Thunar also comes included in lighter distributions like Xubuntu, which is the Xfce-based distribution of Ubuntu. The version of Thunar I used for this review is 1.0.0, tested in GNOME 2.26.1, as they come with Ubuntu 9.04 Jaunty Jackalope.

Thunar 1.0.0 running in Ubuntu 9.04

I think Thunar interface couldn't be more simple than it already is, and it will also satisfy users who like intuitive and easy-to-use applications. Except for the menus, it has no toolbar, but only a sidebar with the common places, like Home, Trash, Desktop, Filesystem or Floppy drive. The rest of Thunar's main window is occupied by the files and directories widget itself. The side panel can be configured to show direct shortcuts, or display a tree view of directories.

Thunar allows you to set emblems to files or folders, it permits modifying permissions with a simple and clear method, and it will allow to choose default applications for opening different types of files.

By default, the location bar is available in Thunar as a separate window using Ctrl+L. This way the new open location window steals focus and prevents access to the main window. Instead, you can choose to change this behaviour with the View -> Location Selector menu entry, from the Pathbar Style to the Toolbar Style. I think the default behaviour may be less confusing to new users, but the second approach is better in my opinion. Also, a very good thing to have them both and the option to toggle between them.

Image previews, file properties and the toolbar style location bar

A powerful feature of Thunar is the ability to create custom actions, for example for extracting compressed files, comparing files etc.

Files and folders can be sorted by name, size, type, modification date, ascending or descending, and the size of the icons can be increased or decreased. They can also be shown as icons, as a detailed or compact list. Besides these, Thunar also allows image previews. There is also the option to set the current file as wallpaper, if it is an image, but it didn't seem to work for me.

Tree view and preferences

The Preferences window allows to configure single or double-clicking to open files/directories, icons sizes, emblems behaviour and the displaying of thumbnails.

Documentation is available as a HTML file on the local disk (if installed properly) and it is accessible via the F1 keyboard shortcut (or the Help -> Contents menu entry).

I noticed Thunar will not offer the possibility to mount volumes (like separate partitions) like Nautilus or Dolphin do, so you will have to do this manually from command line.

What can I say? Thunar is a lightweight application, but under the hood there are many features and an impressive approach. It's true, most of them are typical for any file manager and are a must-have even for a lighter application of this kind, but Thunar succeeds in implementing everything in a nice, compact and intuitive interface. A very good alternative to Nautilus and probably the perfect file manager for Xfce users.
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Comments (18)

bigg ·
Anything will look good. Nautilus is incredibly, hard-to-believe SLOW.

Nautilus has become so annoying that I've recently been running Vector. The plain-vanilla XFCE in Slackware is pretty ugly, so I have been running Vector with XFCE.

You don't realize how often you use the file manager until it starts to annoy you and I've not found any way to completely replace Nautilus with Thunar.
tuxchick ·
Not only slow, but annoying beyond belief. For example, when you're deep into a file tree, which is fun because Nautilus' tree view is broken and obnoxious and totally inefficient, and you re-order your columns, which are mostly invisible until you figure out how to make it show the ones you want, it drops you back to the root of the tree. So when you re-order by date, or filename, or whatever you're always wading back to where you were before. I wish I knew why gnome designers think that clunky, awful, slow, and time-wasting is more user-friendly.
vainrveenr ·
Quoting:Anything will look good. Nautilus is incredibly, hard-to-believe SLOW.
ROX-Filer is another faster alternative to Nautilus, http://freshmeat.net/projects/rox-filer/ There is, of course, the faster and MUCH older Midnight Commander for the CLI, http://freshmeat.net/projects/midnightcommander/

bigg ·
PCMan, too, which is included with Vector. That does the mounting of other partitions that the author finds a drawback of Thunar.
Steven_Rosenber ·
I like ROX quite a bit, Thunar, too. When I run vanilla Ubuntu, which is most of the time these days, I don't find Nautilus to be so problematic or slow. A whole lot of this is hardware-dependent. If you have a fast system, any file manager will seem OK.

ROX is one of those things -- I first used it in Puppy, and my familiarity with it is such that I tend to install it when I'm building up the desktop from scratch in Debian or OpenBSD.
hkwint ·
If you need a file manager at all (CLI works for me), why not just use mc? Or if the lack of 'Windows familiarity' bothers you, Krusader?

Dolphin wasn't all that bad either, but I just kicked out KWin again in favour of good 'ol wmaker (wow, the KDE desktop is slow! It might even make Nautilus look fast!). Good thing is, Krusader runs better in wmaker than in KDE; after I ditched KDE as desktop it doesn't SIGTERM anymore after starting (?!). Maybe you should try Nautilus without Gnome; I suggest using some decent WM instead.
tuppp ·
@tuxchick

***I wish I knew why gnome designers think that clunky, awful, slow, and time-wasting is more user-friendly.***

Nautilus is user-friendly, because it is "simple and pretty": http://library.gnome.org/devel/hig-book/stable/principles-si...

"Simple and pretty" is probably the second most important rule in the Gnome HIG (and in the Mac HIG, too). Compliance with that guideline is much more crucial than actually being usable.

Don't question that logic, because the Gnome (and Apple) designers know what is best for us. They have spent a lot of time standing over computer test subjects, while staring at stopwatches. They also have much more sophisticated "taste" than the rest of us.

By the way, the most important rule in HIGs (Gnome and Mac) is that an app's interface be "consistent." This guideline ensures that lowly end-users won't get momentarily confused if menus/buttons on one app happen to be a different scheme/design than those on other apps.

Nautilus' interface is definitely consistent -- consistently as lame as the rest of Gnome.
tuxchick ·
LOL tuppp... I guess I'll settle for being grateful they don't design cars or power tools... ;)
caitlyn ·
Careful, tuppp. Next you'll be calling the GNOME designers "interface Nazis" like Linus Torvalds did. Then you'll be roundly flamed. Then there will be debate all over the Linux blogosphere and tech journal sites about how you are right or wrong or both at the same time. That will be followed by an article or twelve about how contentious debate is hurting FOSS.
tracyanne ·
Personally I find Nautilus to be no worse than what was done to Konqueror (well actually Dolphin) in KDE4. They are much of a muchmess, and neither gives me the view of the filesystem I really want. Nor for that matter does Thunar.
hkwint ·
Then what does, TA?
tracyanne ·
Konqueror in KDE3 and Windows Explorer
caitlyn ·
I actually like PCManFM the best of the graphical file managers for Linux. Thunar isn't bad and extensions to the latest version do add some of the missing functionality of previous versions. I agree with Hans that mc is very nice on the console. I do use it on servers a whole lot. For another simplistic file manager on the GUI that is kind of like mc there is also Xfe.
herzeleid ·
Quoting:Konqueror in KDE3 and Windows Explorer
Not all that familiar with 'doze, but yes, definitely konqueror in kde 3.5. In fact, the more I see of kde 4, the more I realize that kde 3.5 was the best DE I've ever used.

I've half a mind to start a petition requesting that kde 4 development efforts be halted, and the kde 3.5 code be simply be ported to the new qt libs (and refactored as needed), as would have been done had sanity reigned.
hkwint ·
Quoting:I've half a mind to start a petition requesting that kde 4 development efforts be halted, and the kde 3.5 code be simply be ported to the new qt libs


I guess they'll be happy to point out that you / other people can port KDE3.5 to QT4 if you wish. Instead of choosing the negative approach (halting KDE4), I think you would do better asking if someone is willing to do just that porting. It seems there's enough demand.
herzeleid ·
Quoting:I guess they'll be happy to point out that you / other people can port KDE3.5 to QT4 if you wish.
I'm sure they would glad to do so. But I wasn't entirely serious, as it's not important enough to me to reshape my life around the goal of reviving kde 3.5 - I've already switched to gnome, but I'm keeping an eye on other DEs such as e17 and xfce.
jdixon ·
> I think you would do better asking if someone is willing to do just that porting. It seems there's enough demand.

I expect that to happen. I don't know if it will gain enough developer support to be sustained though.
bigg ·
> A whole lot of this is hardware-dependent. If you have a fast system, any file manager will seem OK.

You would sure think so. Perhaps the fact that everything else happens quickly on my 2.6 Ghz dual-core, 4 GB RAM system is why Nautilus seems so slow. Nonetheless, it is slow. Very slow when I enter a directory with a moderate number of files - it's so slow that it feels like Vista. Thunar is done almost immediately.

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