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Since I changed from Unity to Gnome 3.8, nautilus has not remembered any view options:

  • Every time I launch nautilus, hidden files are displayed
  • Nautilus doesn't remember view settings for any folders (e.g. I change to sort by date modified, descending, in ~/Downloads, but next time I start nautilus it has forgotten).

Any ideas what could be causing this?

Thanks.

wyqydsyq
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7 Answers7

7

I realize that When using Nautilus (Fedora 19 - Gnome 3.8) an icon named "Files" appears in the top left of the screen (not in the window of Nautilus itself). Right click in the icon and choose "Preferences". After changing the settings we should close and restart Nautilus to see the results.

user177934
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    Welcome to Ask Ubuntu! Please avoid posting the same answer in [more than one place](http://askubuntu.com/a/323799). When tempted to do so, typically: (1) the answer should be customized to account for differences between different questions, (2) one question should be flagged for closure as a duplicate of another (you can flag posts with [15 reputation](http://askubuntu.com/privileges/flag-posts)), (3) the answer should really be a comment, **or** (4) the answer should be posted in the most appropriate place, and one-line comments posted on the other questions summarizing and linking to it. – Eliah Kagan Jul 24 '13 at 14:12
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This behaviour was changed from remembering the view settings on a folder-by-folder basis to remembering the view settings on a window-by-window basis. See the bugs:

https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/nautilus/+bug/1152226

and the upstream bug:

https://bugzilla.gnome.org/show_bug.cgi?id=682017

I'm not sure that this was a good user design change. I think some users would rather when going to some folders to see a set of icons and for other folders to see a detailed list, depending on the contents of the folders. It doesn't seem to make sense to have the view setting stick based on the window.

Richard Wеrеzaк
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  • There is also a bug report about bringing back the folder-based view mode settings in Nautilus. If you would like to have the option to for example always display your photos as icons sorted alphabetically and your downloads as a list sorted after date, [you can comment on this issue](https://bugzilla.gnome.org/show_bug.cgi?id=683802). – joelostblom Feb 14 '16 at 01:30
  • This annoying change has persisted, a discussion has been started on https://discourse.gnome.org/t/nautilus-remember-view-view-mode-setting-should-be-persistent-for-each-directory/8242, please comment! – Filbuntu Dec 03 '21 at 12:28
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Turns out the fix was to clear my Nautilus settings (I guess some settings from when I had Unity installed must have been messing with the new version of Nautiulus):

$ rm -rf ~/.config/nautilus; rm -rf ~/.config/nautilus-extensions; dconf reset -f /org/gnome/nautilus/

Source: https://bbs.archlinux.org/viewtopic.php?pid=1266840#p1266840

wyqydsyq
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2

Source

You can manually change nautilus settings like that:

gsettings set org.gnome.nautilus.preferences default-folder-viewer 'list-view'

Tested on Ubuntu 16.04. From now Nautilus remembers that I want list-view)

chill appreciator
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For all people who find this thread by googling: The answer is hidden in one of the comments. If you use GNOME Shell, then the preferences are "hidden": Open an instance of nautilus and then click the "Files" window on the left in the system bar at the top. Then click "Preferences". You can set and save view preferences here in the "Views" tab.

cweilguny
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Sort settings are remembered on a per folder basis in Nautilus 3.18. View settings are not, they are instead remembered on a per window basis. I think it would be more sensible for both to be persistent on a per folder level, but in the meantime, you can use Ctrl+1 and Ctrl+2 to quickly toggle between list and icon view.

joelostblom
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-1

Nautilus>Preferences(Left corner)>View

Fallout4all
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  • This menu doesn't exist in the new version of Nautilus, so the problem still persists... To change the view you have to go to the right corner of the window and select the view. This still doesn't get saved and upon restart, the folder view goes back to default. – Felipe May 06 '13 at 19:47
  • There should still be a settings menu - try hovering over the title in the top left of the panel, you should see the app menu there – wyqydsyq May 07 '13 at 01:58
  • I noticed that if you are using gnome shell, you can access Nautilus preferences by right clicking "Files" on the top-left side of the system bar. – Julio May 07 '13 at 09:14