Thunar - Advanced Settings

Most Thunar settings can be configured within Thunar from the menu by selecting Menu → Edit → Preferences. This will display the Preferences dialog window. Some of Thunar's settings are not visible in this interface because they are considered not general enough for the average user.

Viewing advanced Thunar settings

Thunar's advanced settings can be accessed in two ways:

  1. From the GUI application xfce4-settings-editor
  2. From the CLI using xfconf-query

In the xfce4-settings-editor, select the Thunar channel in order to see which settings are currently stored and to modify them. Make sure to quit Thunar before with “thunar -q”. Otherwise your changes will have no effect.

For xfconf-query, open a terminal window and issue the command: xfconf-query –channel thunar -lv for a list of the current advanced settings and their respective values.

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Hidden Settings List

Below a table of the settings. These settings are defined in https://gitlab.xfce.org/xfce/thunar/-/blob/master/thunar/thunar-preferences.c

Property Value Type Description Default Value min Thunar Version
/misc-always-show-tabs bool If the view tabs should always be visible. false
/misc-case-sensitive bool Determines whether the sorting should be done in a case-sensitive manner. false
/misc-compact-view-max-chars int Number of filename characters to show in compact view. Ellipsization will be used if the filename is longer than the defined value. Set to 0 to prevent any ellipsization. 100 4.17.x
/misc-confirm-move-to-trash bool If true enables a confirmation to move files to trash (similar to permanently delete) false 4.18.x
/misc-confirm-close-multiple-tabs bool Whether to show a confirmation dialog when closing a window with multiple open tabs. true
/misc-ctrl-scroll-wheel-to-zoom bool Whether CTRL + SCROLL-WHEEL to Zoom is enabled. true 4.19.3
/misc-display-launcher-name-as-filename bool Whether to show real file names or launcher names for .desktop files true 4.19.3
/misc-file-drag-mode string Choose between 3 DnD modes for files (see [1] for available options) MENU_ALWAYS 4.21.3
/misc-full-path-in-window-title bool Show the full directory path in the window title, instead of only the directory name. (replaced by /misc-window-title-style) 4.18.x - 4.19.0
/misc-icon-view-max-text-lines int Ellipsize filenames in icon view, if they exceed the given number. -1 for unlimited, 0 for no text. 3 4.21.8
/misc-window-title-style string Choose between 4 styles for the window title (see [2] for available options) FOLDER_NAME_WITH_THUNAR_SUFFIX 4.19.0
/misc-horizontal-wheel-navigates bool Controls whether the horizontal mouse wheel is used to navigate back and forth within a Thunar view, or whether it should be used for horizontal scrolling. false
/misc-image-size-in-statusbar bool Show the image size in the statusbar when a single image file is selected in the view. This is disabled by default because it causes relatively high I/O when changing the selection quickly. false
/misc-open-new-windows-in-split-view bool If true, all thunar windows will have split view enabled. false 4.18.x
/misc-always-enable-split-view bool If true, all thunar windows will have split view enabled. Replaces “/misc-open-new-windows-in-split-view” false 4.19.3
/misc-recursive-permissions str Whether to apply permissions recursively every time the permissions are altered by the user. ASK / ALWAYS / NEVER ASK
/misc-remember-geometry bool Whether Thunar should remember the size of windows and apply that size to new windows. If true the width and height are saved to last-window-width and last-window-height. If false the user may specify the start size in 'last-window-width'' and 'last-window-height''. true
/misc-resolve-links bool Whether Thunar should resolve symbolic links when they are opened. false 4.21.6
/misc-show-about-templates bool Whether to display the “About Templates” dialog, when opening the Templates folder from the Go menu. true
/misc-small-toolbar-icons bool Use small icons on the toolbar instead of the default toolbar size. true
/misc-switch-to-new-tab bool Whether if new tabs should be directly opened. true
/misc-support-overlay-scrolling bool Controls if 'overlay scrolling' should be supported by thunar widgets (a scroll bar will only be shown when mouse-hovering on widgets). When TRUE, the value of the global Gtk property “OverlayScrolling” will be used. false 4.21.5
/misc-tab-close-middle-click bool Whether to close tabs when the tab label is clicked with the 2nd/middle-mouse-button. true
/misc-tree-lines-in-tree-sidepane bool Whether to show tree lines or not in the tree side pane. false 4.19.3
/misc-undo-redo-history-size int Maximum number of ThunarJobOperations which can be undone/redone -1 for unlimited 10 4.18.x
/misc-vertical-split-pane bool Whether on F3 the panes should be split vertically or horizontally. false 4.17.8
/smart-sort bool If enabled, filenames are split into collatable substrings and e.g. numbers are compared separately in a numeric way instead of comparing them digit-by-digit. If disabled, plain ASCII is used. Change only takes effect after a thunar restart. true 4.21.3

[1] File Drag Modes

[2] Window Title Styles

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Enabling/Adding Hidden Settings

The hidden settings need to be specifically added/enabled in the settings channel of Thunar in order to enable, or change their functionality.

The quickest way to change hidden settings is to run a command in the terminal-emulator. 

xfconf-query --channel thunar --property /property-name --create --type value-type --set new-value

E.g. to enable the image size in the statusbar, run the following command: 

xfconf-query --channel thunar --property /misc-image-size-in-statusbar --create --type bool --set true

Or to prevent showing the DnD context menu on each drag operation, run the following: 

xfconf-query --channel thunar --property /misc-file-drag-mode --create --type string --set THUNAR_FILE_DRAG_MODE_MENU_CONDITIONAL

For additional usage information, see the xfconf-query reference page.

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Customising Thunar with CSS

For most graphical elements of Thunar (and all other gtk3 applications) , it is possible to customize them via CSS, as it is done with themes.

Here an example (gtk3 based):

  1. Create a file ~/.config/gtk-3.0/gtk.css
  2. Paste following content in this file:
  3. Save and restart thunar (thunar -q; thunar)
 /* Row and column Spacing for the icon view cab be adusted since Thunar 1.8.0 */
 
 * {
   -ThunarAbstractIconView-row-spacing: 70;
   -ThunarAbstractIconView-column-spacing: 30;
 }
 /* The progressbar for devices in the shortcuts pane can be configured starting with Thunar 4.21.3 */
 
 /* Changing the progressbar height */
 .thunar .disk-space-usage-bar { min-height: 8px; }
 
 /* Changing the color of progressbars */
 .thunar .disk-space-usage-bar--normal { background: none; background-color: Green; }
 .thunar .disk-space-usage-bar--warning { background: none; background-color: Purple; }
 .thunar .disk-space-usage-bar--error { background: none; background-color: IndianRed; }

Check the GTK+ CSS Overview page to see learn how CSS can be used in gtk3.

Use the GTK Inspector together with thunar to see which properties can be modified on each element.

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