I am wondering if it is possibly to completely remove the "computer" and "network" categories from Nautilus sidebar. I would like to do this because the locations that fall under them cannot be edited and I don't use those. Instead, I prefer to specify my own locations which I can do through the Bookmarks. This is all fine, but the "computer" and "network" just sit there doing nothing (potentially distracting).
It seems these categories are hardcoded in Nautilus 3.4.2? At least I can't find a way to remove them. Any suggestions are welcomed.
Best Answer
Probably not even an issue for you anymore after all this time but I was having a very similar problem and this was one of the first few posts to come up on Google so hopefully this can help others.
In Nautilus click view > Show Hidden Files then from your home directory go to /.config/ in there you will find a file called user-dirs.dirs this contains the entries under 'Computer'.
MAKE SURE TO BACK UP ANYTHING YOU CHANGE
If you change, for example,
XDG_DOWNLOAD_DIR="$HOME/Downloadsto justXDG_DOWNLOAD_DIR="$HOME/"the downloads folder will no longer show up under 'Computer' in the sidebar.You can also just comment out every line, in which case it will only show 'Home', 'File System' and 'Trash'. It will keep those other directories as bookmarks though so you can do what you like with them.
This will not remove the 'Computer' entry entirely, just remove its entries, but it will make it look considerably cleaner. Sorry I can't help on the 'Network' Entry.
Sources: Personal experience trying to restore missing entries under 'Computer'.