XFCE – How to Use Nautilus as Default File Manager

Installing the Dropbox deb files from the Dropbox website (Ubuntu or Debian, I have not tested others) will not install Nautilus, although gdebi says a Nautilus extension will be installed. Installing just Dropbox from Ubuntu sources in Synaptic or in terminal will neither install Nautilus. File manager integration is also provided in Synaptic (Ubuntu sources) with the packages nemo-dropbox and caja-dropbox, as well as with libnet-dropbox-api-perl.

After installing Dropbox with Nautilus (sudo apt-get install dropbox python-gpgme)

Un-installing Nautilus works without glitches but there is limited integration with the file manager at this point, maybe opening Dropbox folder from the tray icon, but without Dropbox features in the file manager (folder symbols and menu integration). Tested with Cinnamon and Nemo.

For Nemo/Cinnamon.

There is nemo-dropbox. "Nemo dropbox is an extension that integrates the dropbox web service with your cinnamon desktop. - installing this package will download the proprietary dropbox binary from dropbox.com."

That should mean that the simplest solution of installing Dropbox without Nautilus for Nemo file manager is to just install the extension nemo-dropbox: that will install Dropbox with Nemo integration. But that is limited to Nemo.

For Caja file manger: caja-dropbox.

"Caja dropbox is an extension that integrates the dropbox web service with your mate desktop. -- to use this package you need to install the proprietary dropbox package from https://www.dropbox.com/install."

So, you need to have Dropbox before installing this.

As far as I can tell, libnet-dropbox-api-perl is enough in order to have file manager integration (tested with Nemo without nemo-dropbox).

For Dolphin:

• Based on this KDE-reddit post:

Install dolphin-plugins, then enable the Dropbox service under Configure Dolphin... > Services > Dropbox. This adds the option "Move to Dropbox" for non-dropbox-ed items; inside Dropbox folder it shows this

• Among the numerous Dolphin service menus that are included in the KDE-Services package there is one that provides Dropbox options.

Check-marks on dropbox items may be absent with icon-sets lacking the proper files at ICONSET/emblems/scalable. Copying the files from a different icon-set will fix this problem.

So, as said in the question, Thunar removal is not needed. (If it was removed, it can be re-installed; in Mint it's sudo apt install thunar mint-meta-xfce thunar thunar-archive-plugin thunar-media-tags-plugin thunar-volman xfce4-places-plugin.)

The whole problem is related to identifying the Xfce desktop manager.

I have received an answer to that question: it's xfdesktop.

It must run in Xfce in order to have a proper desktop; it shouldn't be stopped (withxfdesktop --quit) as suggested in the question, or the desktop loses wallpaper and compositing. But all problems mentioned in the question disappear as everything falls into place once xfdesktop program is specified correctly in gsettings: Nemo-desktop is the desktop manager associated with Nemo; it checks whether other desktop managers are running; if the case, nemo-desktop stops, except when such managers are specified in gsettings (maybe with dconf Editor) under org.nemo.desktop ignored-desktop-handlers.

So:

• in terminal do gsettings set org.nemo.desktop ignored-desktop-handlers ['xfdesktop']

• in xfdesktop-settings ('Desktop') go to Icons -> Appearance -> Icon type and set it to none

• in 'Session and Startup' (xfce4-session-settings), 'Application autostart', add nemo-desktop

• restart session

Other useful settings for Nemo in Xfce:

• integrate with Thunar bulk rename: in Nemo, Edit > Preferences > Behavior > Bulk rename, enter thunar --bulk-rename

• add custom actions with filemanager-actions (Filemanager-Actions Configurations Tool); details here