Ubuntu – How to get a folder size in nautilus to include hidden files (dotfiles)

The value displayed is called by the function g_format_size_for_display of GLib. You have to edit the source code of nautilus to change this behaviour by just adding an %i to the output:

Step 1: Download source, install dependencies and open the file to edit

mkdir -p .p/nautilus && cd .p/nautilus
sudo apt-get build-dep nautilus
apt-get source nautilus && cd nautilus*
gedit src/file-manager/fm-properties-window.c

Step 2: Change the code

Now go to line 2338 (in Nautilus 2.30) and change with size %s to with size %s (%i Bytes). Do the same for totalling %s. Change it to totalling %s (%i Bytes) It should now look like this:

    text = g_strdup_printf (ngettext("%'d item, with size %s (%i Bytes)",
                     "%'d items, totalling %s (%i Bytes)",

Step 3: Compile

Now you can simply compile Nautilus like every other application

./configure --prefix=/usr
make
sudo make install
nautilus -q

Note that Nautilus will be overwritten whenever there will be an update to it through package management. This means you have to build and install it again manually.

There is also an alternative way by using an Nautilus script, but this would add another entry in the right click meny instead of having the value in the properties window.

I would say that the problem here is a bug in Geany, which is responsible for populating your recent files list with the faulty entry. It should be using a 'real path' instead of a path with . in it when creating these entries.

https://github.com/geany/geany/blob/12b9f27a795f7ec8c1faf6c225314a09b6c5f7af/src/ui_utils.c

I can't see where your . filepath would have come from. I tried opening a file in Geany, and the new entry in ~/.local/share/recently-used.xbel that appeared had the correct filename there, not a .. But if there is some use-case where you can open a directory in Geany, then that could be how you ended up with this entry in your recently-used file list. I would simply remove the whole chunk for the recently-used file list (or delete the file completely and restart, I can't imagine that would cause problems)