Ubuntu – How to make 33% “list view” in Nautilus be the default view for the system

There is an upstream bug about this, but unfortunately it's open since 2003 and probably won't receive a fix in the near future.

Don't know if there's a Nautilus script that allows you to expand/collapse all folders.

What does work, is to expand directories "level-by-level" by using the asterisk (*) multiple times (first time it expands all subdirectories, second time all subdirectories of subdirectories, etc.) - it's close to what you want, but admittedly not optimal.

I see what you're saying. Sadly there is no way to do this; you must do it globally in the preferences as you have.

My suggestion: If you need to know if a folder is newer/older than a file, you could set it to the List view (which shows some details on the files) and arrange the items by modification date. That would probably be the closest to what you're looking for.