GNOME 3.12 Files/Nautilus “Sort Folders before Files” issues

Posted on June 1, 2014 by Gerald Nunn

I’m using Arch and recently updated to GNOME 3.12 and immediately noticed an annoying visual issue whereby the GNOME Files application (aka Nautilus) would display files interwoven with folders whereas I strongly prefer showing folders first then files. The Files app does have a preference called “Sort Folders before Files” available but it doesn’t work, enabling it doesn’t do anything and checking the preference dialog a second time shows it back to being unchecked.

To work around the issue, I ended up using the dconf-editor application to change it manually. Navigate to the org.gnome.nautilus.preferences key and set the option sort-directories-first to true.

To achieve the same effect for the Open and Save file dialogs, navigate to the key org.gtk.Settings.FileChooser and set the option sort-directories-first to true.

24 thoughts on “GNOME 3.12 Files/Nautilus “Sort Folders before Files” issues”

Joce on June 9, 2014 at 11:27 said:

I had the same issue with the ‘staging’ GNOME 3.12 on Ubuntu, that fixes it thanks.

Reply ↓
- Andy on January 5, 2015 at 10:41 said:
  
  On Ubuntu 14.10 the Nautlius setting works, but File Chooser doesn’t offer this option.
  
  Thanks a bunch!
  
  Reply ↓
  - Muha on December 6, 2017 at 19:46 said:
    
    look under org/gtk/settings/file-chooser
    i can change the option there. (fedora 27, cinnamon spin if that matters)
    
    Reply ↓
Monty on June 14, 2014 at 13:56 said:

Thx a lot for the hint, issue fixed

Reply ↓
Trevor on July 25, 2014 at 17:55 said:

Worked for me too – thanks!

Reply ↓
hosein ghadiri on July 30, 2014 at 13:15 said:

hi, I had exactly this problem. fixed. Thanks a lot.

Reply ↓
Taco on September 13, 2014 at 17:06 said:

Thanks, I’m going to see if this has been reported yet or not and try and get it fixed officially.

Reply ↓
zippp on November 19, 2014 at 08:47 said:

this worked for me:
Click the “Files” title on the panel, next to “Activities” then select “Preferences”.
On the first tab there is an option – “Sort folders before files”
Check the box.
[taken from here: http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=2074040%5D

Reply ↓
- Diederik on December 12, 2014 at 08:12 said:
  
  That only works for Nautilus I believe, not for file selection dialogs in other applications (for opening/saving/exporting)
  
  Reply ↓
  - ph88 on January 14, 2015 at 21:57 said:
    
    For file selection dialogs set true: org.gtk.Settings.FileChooser.sort-directories-first
    
    Reply ↓
- user on December 31, 2015 at 01:56 said:
  
  @zippp Thank you!
  
  Reply ↓
Mojtaba Zarezadeh on November 22, 2014 at 19:23 said:

Thanks.

Reply ↓
Jin on December 18, 2014 at 09:08 said:

Thank you for the tip! You saved my day 😀

Reply ↓
niels on February 3, 2015 at 08:15 said:

Great, thank you! So I got rid of nautilus.

Reply ↓
Rolf Pedersen on February 23, 2015 at 02:11 said:

Hey, thanks for this. The gtk file chooser was all jumbled on my newly adopted Manjaro and this post showed me how to fix it. 😀

Reply ↓
Temp on March 25, 2015 at 11:34 said:

Thank you

Reply ↓
David Parloir on May 6, 2015 at 12:53 said:

thank you for this, this was annoying me for quite some time now.
any idea on how to do the same for the “copy to” or “move to” functionality?

Reply ↓
quovadis on May 18, 2015 at 23:55 said:

i have the same problem.
fixed. thank you.

Reply ↓
Stéfan on January 1, 2016 at 16:24 said:

Yeah that’s so good, thx a lot !
Working on debian too

Reply ↓
Edward O on January 19, 2016 at 13:43 said:

Command-line:
dconf write /org/gnome/nautilus/preferences/sort-directories-first true

Reply ↓
- Jonny on June 1, 2016 at 16:40 said:
  
  Thanks, works for me on MATE
  
  Reply ↓
Martin on May 14, 2016 at 15:02 said:

Thanks! for me (F22 gnome 3.12 ) this worked ,
{code}
gsettings set org.gnome.nautilus.preferences sort-directories-first true
{code}

Reply ↓
Don on May 2, 2017 at 15:17 said:

Excellent trick, the dconf option it is. Works like a charm

Reply ↓
Bruno Raphael on October 9, 2017 at 10:11 said:

I’m on Fedora 26 w/ GNOME, no keys to “org.gnome.nautilus.preferences sort-directories-first”.
What worked for me was “org.gtk.Settings.FileChooser sort-directories-first”.

Reply ↓

Leave a Reply Cancel reply