Ubuntu – How to drag a folder to the launcher from Nautilus

The "Home Folder" icon is actually a shortcut to Nautilus. To get it back:

1. Press Alt+F2 and run nautilus.
2. Right-click on the Home Folder icon in the launcher and check Keep in Launcher.
3. Drag the icon back up to the top of the launcher. (Hint: Drag it to the right first, otherwise the launcher will just scroll.)

You can manually add your favourite files in the Quicklist of a Launcher-icon so that it looks like in this screenshot for LibreOffice Writer:

I describe the way for Precise Pangolin using Ubuntu Tweak (Version 0.7.0) - using MyUnity is similar:

Open Ubuntu Tweak > QuickLists Editor > click on LibreOffice-Writer on the left side > click on the little Plus-symbol > Enter the Name of the file (it's the name that will be shown in the Quicklist) > In the Command-field enter: libreoffice --writer /Path/to/file/MyFavouriteText.odt (e.g. libreoffice --writer ~/Documents/MyFavouriteText.odt or libreoffice --writer "~/Documents/My Favourite Text.odt") > Press Save. Repeat this procedure to add further odt-files to the quicklist.

Note: I had to login again to make the behaviour of starting a favourite file from the Quicklist work properly.

Concerning LibreOffice Calc the command would be:

libreoffice --calc /Path/to/file/MyFavouriteSpreadsheet.ods

Concerning Gedit the command would be:

gedit /Path/to/file/MyFavouriteNote.txt

This solution also works when - for privacy reasons - someone has Zeitgeist totally disabled or just textfiles and/or spreadsheets excluded from activity-logging. Without Zeitgeist enabled, the Dash will show no Recently Used Files.