Ubuntu – How to “open in terminal” when “viewing items as list” on Nautilus

nautilus

When it is set "view items as grid of icons" you just right-click and open in terminal. However, when it is set "viewing items as list" and the page is full of files, it's not possible to find an empty space to right-click and open in terminal.

Best Answer

You are right. I'm sure someone knows how to magic free space into a long list. But here is how to do it until they get here:

Go up to the parent directory of the one you want, right click on the directory you want to open in terminal, and the option is there.

If going up to the parent directory isn't possible (because you're at the top of the tree, for example), right click on any directory in the list, select open in terminal and then type

cd ..

to change to the parent directory, and there you are.

Use Nemo.

There you can add a button in the Toolbar to open Terminal in current folder.

Ubuntu – How to enable ‘open terminal here’ from nautilus when in ‘list’ (not tiled) mode

You are facing an issue in Files (nautilus) that comes with Ubuntu 18.04. Indeed, if the list view is full, there is no empty space where you can right-click to obtain the folder-specific righ-click menu. That is the menu that contains the "Open terminal here" option.

The issue is solved in more recent versions by making the breadcrumb path items, i.e., the buttons of the folders above the file list, more functional. You now can click (or right-click) the folder name in the breadcrumb to obtain the menu, making that context menu available with the mouse anytime.

Still, you can work around in the Nautilus version that comes with 18.04.

Keyboard shortcut in Nautilus

The shortcut key Ctrl+F10 opens the empty-space context menu anytime. Thus, just press Ctrl+F10 then e to open the terminal here.

Using a Nautilus script

If that is not enough and you also want mouse accessibility to the Open Terminal Here command, then there is still a way to implement the function using nautilus scripts.

Create a script, Terminal, that contains following code

Script code:

#!/bin/sh
gnome-terminal

(yes, it cannot be more simple than that!).

Put the script in the folder .local/share/nautilus/scripts under your home folder. Enable "Show hidden files". Then you will see the hidden .local folder and be able to navigate to scripts.
Make the script executable. (Right-click, Properties tab, Permissions: "Allow executing file as program")
Restart nautilus (killall nautilus). Now, you will have a new "scripts" menu when right-clicking any file, which contains your "Terminal" command

Optional: assign a hotkey to the script

(Update: unfortunately the following does not anymore work in Ubuntu 20.10).

If it does not exist, create a text file ~/.config/nautilus/scripts-accels
Add a line:

F12 Terminal

Hitting F12 in nautilus now will immediately open a terminal in the current folder.

Best Answer

Related Solutions

Ubuntu – Nautilus context menu for current directory when there’s lots of files / “Open in Terminal”

Use Nemo.

Ubuntu – How to enable ‘open terminal here’ from nautilus when in ‘list’ (not tiled) mode

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