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Why can I not open a second or third window, and so on, to view directories and files?

If I click the Home Folder button the same Nautilus window keeps showing up.

1
  • Seeing that your original, unedited question asked to find Bleachbit, have you considered searching for a downloadable .deb package, or using a PPA that includes it?
    – nanofarad
    May 29, 2012 at 12:00

4 Answers 4

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There are multiple ways to open more Nautilus windows:

  • Middle-click the Home Folder launcher icon
  • With a Nautilus window open, go to File > New Window (or get the option in the HUD)
  • With a Nautilus window open, use the Ctrl+N keyboard shortcut
  • Press Super+Shift+N (if it's one of the top 1 through 9 in the launcher)
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This is a easy way to open new Nautilus window that I found for myself:

  • Open terminal and type gksudo nautilus /usr/share/applications/ press Enter
    type your password

  • Now find files application. There are two files which one of them only open one Nautilus window and the other one open more than Nautilus window if you clicked on icons.

enter image description here


If you go to Properties from right-click on each icons, you see there, those are different from another one (see command section)

enter image description here

  • Now copy --new-window %U and paste it at the end of command section for other files application command. now both of command text box have nautilus --new-window %U in it.

  • Choice close and also close applications and terminal window.

Now I assign a shortcut (like Super+E) to open new window every where even if you are not in backgound or another Nautilus explorer is already opened.

Type Keyboard in dash and open Shortcuts tab from opened keyboard window. Select Launchers from left pane and then select second column in front of Home Folder item, now press your favorite shortcut key (mine is Super+E). After assign close keyboard window and press shortcuted key to open more than one and every where NEW Nautilus Explorer. COOL.

enter image description here

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If you have a previously opened Nautilus window, holding Shift and clicking the launcher icon will open a new window. Works for all applications.

Open a new instance of a window: Shift + Left click on launcher icon.

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I don't understand how it works, but I had this problem with gedit too, and I fixed it (and Nautilus/Files) like this:

sudo nano /usr/share/applications/org.gnome.Nautilus.desktop

Then change this line:

DBusActivatable=true

to this:

DBusActivatable=false

Also make sure the Exec command has --new-window in it like this:

Exec=nautilus --new-window %U

(Mine was like that by default)

According to @muru (in the comments below), you may want to then run this:

cp /usr/share/applications/org.gnome.Nautilus.desktop ~/.local/share/applications/org.gnome.Nautilus.desktop

to make a copy that will override the 'global' one, and should be persisted even after Nautilus is updated by the package manager. However, as noted, this will mean that if the package is updated with new config, you won't get those updates. That said, I'd expect old config files to still be compatible with newer versions of the package. When the package is updated, you can run this to check for new config values that you may want to bring over into your custom config:

diff /usr/share/applications/org.gnome.Nautilus.desktop ~/.local/share/applications/org.gnome.Nautilus.desktop
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  • Any changes to that file will be lost the next the nautilus package is updated
    – muru
    Feb 2 at 13:44
  • @muru Oh, that's good to know! I'm guessing since you didn't mention it, that it's not easy to 'robustly' fix that problem?
    – joe
    Feb 3 at 7:52
  • 1
    One option is to make a copy of that file in ~/.local/share/applications and edit that copy instead (it should mask the original then IIRC, but I'm not sure). That way though you'll lose out on any updates to the original, since you'll be using your old copy all the time.
    – muru
    Feb 3 at 16:03

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