How can I stop Nautilus from dereferencing symlinks? [closed]

Question

I use symbolic links to tidy my home folder. This works well in the terminal, since the links create the illusion of normal folders:

In Nautilus, however, the links behave more like Windows shortcuts, immediately teleporting me to their target:

This is particularly troubling when¹ I later want to navigate "up" to the parent folder, as it strands me somewhere outside of the tree I've carefully tidied.

How can I make Nautilus show symbolic links as normal folders, like the terminal does?

Details

• Nautilus did not dereference symlinks in Ubuntu 12.10:

  

• Maybe this new behavior is just a bug? I'm not sure how to tell. Here's what I know:

  • It's not on the Nautilus 3.6 Roadmap.
  • I've skimmed the recently closed Nautilus bugs and didn't see anything related.
  • The Nautilus mailing list archive doesn't mention the topic.
  • I received no response from about 120 idlers when posing the question on the GNOME IRC channel.
  • A change was made in Nautilus 3.6 to resolve symbolic links before launching applications.
• ¹ This is an example. A workaround for this particular scenario does not constitute an answer to my question. Since people seem to be interested in discussing it, though:
  • Using the Back button is not a suitable workaround; it does not always take me to the parent folder.
  • You can navigate up by pressing Alt+Up.
  • The desired behavior in this example is for "up" to navigate to the parent folder of the symbolic link. The current behavior is to navigate to the parent folder of the target of the symbolic link.

Answer 1

This one is a workaround, but may not constitute the actual answer you're trying to find:

On nautilus, Ctrl+L, type in the symlink name (e.g. link or ./link), Enter. It will not dereference the symlink this time.

Answer 2

UPDATE: this TERRIBLE BUG apparently is now fixed in Nautilus 3.14.2, what follows is a workaround for older versions

I found this workaround:

1. Install Nautilus-Actions Configuration Tool

2. Run nautilus-actions

3. Add an action called "Open Link"

4. In the "Command" Tab -> Path: /usr/bin/nautilus, Parameters: --no-default-window %u (optional) Menu Edit->Preferences->uncheck "Create a root 'Nautilus-action' menu, uncheck "Add an 'About' ..."

5. Restart Nautilus (e.g. xkill)

6. Right click any symlink folder, a new Nautilus window will open with the folder (not the dereferenced folder).

Limitations still: a) Nautilus now has to context menus "Open" and "Open Link" (you have to remember to use the right one), b) a new window opens each time.