Nautilus Extension: Nautilus Extra Columns

GNOME Files has Grid View and List views for browsing your files and folders. Whilst GNOME Files minimalism is visually appealing, it can be limiting, especially when compared to something like Windows File Explorer or KDE Plasma Dolphin. The List View by default is limited to a few category columns. This extension adds extra columns like image EXIF data, audio tags, and .pdf metadata. This could potentially be expanded further with extra Python libraries, something I might decide to experiment with if I need more columns :)

Installation

Installation can be narowed down to just the required categories; For example, if you wish to install just the mediainfo category:

make install-mediainfo => this will install just the src/nec-mediainfo.py extension, rather than the whole content of src

Requirements & Dependencies

• make
• mediainfo: pymediainfo
• exif: pyexiv2
• pdf: PyPDF2

To install all of the above on a Debian or Redhat based system, use the command below

if [ -f "/etc/debian_version" ]; then
 sudo apt install make python3 python3-gi python3-pil gir1.2-nautilus-3.0 gir1.2-gexiv2-0.10 python3-nautilus python3-mutagen python3-pypdf2 python3-plumbum python3-exiv2 mediainfo
fi

if [ "$(grep -Ei 'fedora|redhat' /etc/*release)" ]; then
 sudo dnf install make python3 python3-pillow python3-nautilus python3-mutagen python3-exiv2 python3-PyPDF2 python3-plumbum mediainfo
fi

Install to global destination (system)

To install the extension, clone the GitHub repository through your terminal:

git clone https://github.com/Hekel1989/nautilus-extra-columns.git

Navigate to the repository’s folder:

cd nautlius-extra-columns/

Use make to install the extension:

sudo make install PREFIX=/usr

Restart GNOME Files/Nautilus for the changes to take effect:

nautilus -q

If that doesn’t work, then kill the Nautilus process:

sudo killall nautilus

Install to local destination (home directory)

Follow the exact same procedure as above, but rather than running

sudo make install PREFIX=/usr

run this instead

make install

To use Nautilus Extra Columns:

• On the GNOME Files top bar, click the list/grid view button to toggle the list view on a folder.
• Click the View options button next to the list/grid view button.
• Click Visible Columns.
• Toggle the extra columns added by the extension.

You can also right-click the row of column categories on a folder with list view to find and use the extra columns.

Uninstall

To uninstall the extension, navigate to the git folder and run uninstall as below

sudo make uninstall PREFIX=/usr

Credit to Teo Elizalde (MakeUseOf) for the structure of the document