Nautilus: use these keyboard shortcuts and be more productive

Most users use the mouse to perform almost all actions. For example, to copy a text, I think that most users (at least the ones I know) right-click and select the option, which would be nothing serious if it is only done once every long time. But if what we want is to copy and paste many times a day, it is best to copy with the shortcut Ctrl + C and paste with Ctrl + V. In this article we will show you some interesting ones to use in Nautilus, Ubuntu's default file manager.

The list of shortcuts will not be very long, but only a few will be added that will allow us to perform the most common actions in any file manager. It is also important to say that the order of the list does not have any hierarchy, that is, those that appear first are not more important than those that appear last. Without further ado, I'll tell you about the keyboard shortcuts What else do I use in Nautilus.

Very useful Nautilus keyboard shortcuts

Show hidden files

It will not always be necessary and it is worth not showing them if we do not know what we are doing, but it can be a very useful option. In almost any operating system, there are hidden files that are in this state for our security. But if we want to see this type of information for whatever, such as copying the folder .mozilla to recover all the Firefox configuration if we are going to install the system from 0, we will have to see the hidden files.

In Ubuntu, this is as simple as opening a Nautilus window and pressing Ctrl + H.

Close all Nautilus windows

If we have opened many windows of the file manager and we do not want to waste time looking for the X to close them all, we can do it at once using the shortcut Ctrl + Q. If we only want to close one, we would have to use the combination Ctrl + W.

Create a shortcut

If we are going to access a file a lot and it is inside several folders, which will force us to take a walk until we can access it, it may be a good idea to create a shortcut, alias or link. For example, I created one for the Desktop folder on my Windows partition. To make a direct access without using the mouse we will have to use the shortcut Ctrl + M. We will know that it has been created successfully because a similar file will appear, with the same name, but with an arrow like the one you see in the previous image.

Change view type

I like to see large icons, but this has the downside that we see much less files. If we want to have a broader view of the files in a folder, we can change the view in which they are displayed using the shortcut Ctrl + 2.

Duplicate a file

Why do we want to duplicate a file? Well, simple: to be able to modify it without fear of spoiling the original. If we want to duplicate a file, we just have to press Ctrl, click on the file and drag it to another point, it can be in the same folder or in any other path, such as the desktop.

Even more interesting than making a duplicate can be to do the same but pressing Alt instead of Ctrl. I find it more interesting because it will allow us to Move, Copy or Link (create a shortcut). Moving a file is what interests me the most, since it will allow us, for example, to move what we have on a Pendrive to the desktop. I do not know if you know that when deleting any file from a Pendrive in Unix-based operating systems, these files are put in the .Trash folder, so to delete a file from a Pendrive we will have to move it to the hard drive of our computer, which copies the file to another path, not without first completely deleting the original file.

Rename a file

This can come in handy, for example, in screenshots. Instead of having the name «Screenshot 14:34:22», it is best to rename it to know what it contains, for which we can press the key F2 and then enter the new text.

View file information

Many times we want to see the information of a file. In this way we can grant it execution permission, know the exact path where it is or configure with which program we want the files with the same extension to be opened by default. If we do not want to use the mouse, we can see the information of the file by pressing Ctrl + I.

Open a folder in a new tab

Users have long become accustomed to using tabs in different file managers. Nautilus has offered us this possibility for a long time and if we want to open a folder in a new Nautilus tab, we can do so by selecting it and using the shortcut Shift + Enter (Enter).

Create a new folder

If what we want is to create a new folder, we can always do it with the mouse, but as this post is about shortcuts, the one we will use to create a new folder will be Ctrl + Shift + N. If we do not press Shift and leave only Ctrl + N, we will open a new Nautilus window.

Move to Trash

When we work with several temporary files, as has been the case with this post and its screenshots, we will have a folder full of photos. I like to leave these files on the Desktop, do the work, and delete them to make my desktop clean again. If we want to delete all these files at the same time, it is best to use the combination Fn + Del. "Fn" is the "Function" key that is available on many computers and the delete key may be on some computers as "DEL".

What are your favorite Nautilus shortcuts?