Thunar File Manager
Introduction
Thunar is a modern file manager for the Xfce Desktop Environment. Thunar has been designed from the ground up to be fast and easy to use. Its user interface is clean and intuitive and does not include any confusing or useless options by default. Thunar starts up quickly and navigating through files and folders is fast and responsive.
- The File Manager Window – working with the Thunar window and modifying the layout
- Working with Files and Folders – basic file handling
- Using Removable Media – working with removable devices
- File Management Preferences – details of the different file manager preferences
- Frequently Asked Questions – some random things you probably want to know
- Advanced Settings – The xfce4-settings-editor, customize gtk3 css and more possible tweaks
- The UNIX filesystem – understanding the UNIX File System
- The "Send To" Menu – how to customize the send to menu
Thunar Plugins
Thunar plugins can be installed as separate, additional packages in order to extend the functionality of Thunar. Most Thunar plugins offer additional options on files in the context menu or via shortcut. The interface which is used by thunar plugins is the thunarx API.
- Bulk Renamer – rename multiple files at once
- Custom Actions – custom commands associated with common mime-types or extensions
- Archive Plugin (thunar-archive-plugin) – allows to create and extract archive files
- Media Tags Plugin (thunar-media-tags-plugin) – improved support for ID3 tags
- Shares Plugin (thunar-shares-plugin) – Quickly share folders using Samba without requiring root access
- Volume Manager (thunar-volman) – Automatic management of removable devices in Thunar
- VCS Plugin (thunar-vcs-plugin) – adds Subversion and GIT actions to the context menu
Other Thunar Related Packages
- Gnome Virtual File System – required for trash support, mounting removable media, and remote filesystems
- Tumbler – the remote thumbnail service for Thunar
Debugging Support
Thunar currently supports four different levels of debugging support, which can be setup using the configure flag –enable-debug (check the output of configure –help):
| Argument | Description |
|---|---|
| full | Use this if you want to debug Thunar to locate a bug. The build will most probably be noticably slower. This is also recommended for people that want to develop Thunar stuff. |
| yes | Adds all kinds of checks to the code, and is therefore likely to run slower. Use this if you want to develop for Thunar (e.g. writing Thunar extensions and such). |
| minimum | This is the default for release builds, and presents the recommended behaviour. |
| no | Disables all sanity checks. Don't use this unless you know exactly what you do. |
For some additional build & debug hints, as well check the Thunar Wiki pages.
Standards compliance
Thunar supports the following standards/specifications:
Required Packages
Thunar depends on the following packages:
Thunar can optionally be build with the following packages:
- D-Bus (strongly suggested, required for inter process communication)
- xfce-panel (required to build the trash panel applet)
- gudev (required for thunar-volman)
- libnotify (required for mount notification support)
For concrete information on the minimum required versions, check configure.ac.in
Latest Release
- thunar 4.21.2 released (2025/07/08 14:57)thunar 4.21.2 is now available for download from https://archive.xfce.org/src/xfce/thunar/4.21/thunar-4.21.2.tar.xz https://archive.xfce.org/src/xfce/thunar/4.21/thunar-4.21.2.tar.xz?sha1 https://archive.xfce.org/src/xfce/thunar/4.21/thunar-4.21.2.tar.xz?sha256 What is thunar? =============== Thunar is a modern file manager for the Xfce Desktop Environment. It has been designed from the ground up to be fast and easy-to-use. Its user interface is clean and intuitive, and does not include any confusing or useless options. Thunar is fast and responsive with a good start up time and directory load time. Thunar is accessible using Assistive Technologies and is fully standards compliant. Website: https://docs.xfce.org/xfce/thunar/start Release notes for 4.21.2 ======================== [Please note that this is a development release.] Development release on the master branch. Here the changelog: Fixes: - Fix quoting when running shell scripts in a terminal (#1661) - Avoid use-after-free in rename dialog when file is changed underneath - Improve file add/remove checks for ThunarFolder (#1649) - Properly update view after hidden file rename - Always reload ThunarFiles on change notice (#1650) - Directly notify after file reload (#1650) - Reset folder monitor on folder rename (#1644) - Add basic signal handling (#1633) - Fix leaks when replacing existing file with new file or directory - Fix a GFile leak in _thunar_io_jobs_rename - location-bar: Properly destroy child widgets (#573) - Consistently use parent pointer instead of screen (#1632) - Wipe transient parent when setting screen (#1632) - Split 'thunar_util_parse_parent' in two methods (#1632) - Only save column width when in fixed column mode - sbr: Replace libexif with gexiv2 - apr: Replace libexif with gexiv2 - wayland: Fix popup position of DnD menu - Fix use-after-free in thunar_renamer_dialog_response (#1458) - Fix use-after-free on exit with search tabs open (#1593) - Close rename dialog if file renamed outside dialog (#1323) - Fix leaks in thunar_uca_provider_get_file_menu_items - Fix ThunarFile leaks in location-buttons (#573) - Fix GtkImageMenuItem leaks with UCA submenus - Fix ThunarxMenuItem leaks when finalizing ThunarxMenu - Rework VirtualBox DnD detection (#113) New Features: - Add menu action to paste links (#34) - New directory specific setting: "sort-folder-first" (#1580) - Thunar transfer job - count items in subfolders Maintenance: - Rename "thunar_file_destroy" to "thunar_file_signal_destroy" - Remove duplicated signal connect - Add .git-blame-ignore-revs file - Remove outdated code - Make use of 'startup ID' when available - Use XfceNotebook from libxfce4ui (#1562) Translation Updates: Albanian, Arabic, Asturian, Basque, Belarusian, Bulgarian, Catalan, Chinese (China), Chinese (Taiwan), Czech, Danish, Dutch, English (United Kingdom), Esperanto, Estonian, Finnish, French, Galician, Georgian, German, Greek, Hebrew, Hungarian, Indonesian, Interlingue, Italian, Japanese, Kazakh, Malay, Norwegian Bokmål, Polish, Portuguese, Portuguese (Brazil), Romanian, Serbian, Slovak, Slovenian, Spanish, Swedish, Thai, Turkish, Vietnamese
Source Code Repository
https://gitlab.xfce.org/xfce/thunar
For additional build, test and debugging tips, see this page for more suggestions.
Reporting Bugs
- Reporting Bugs – Open bug reports and how to report new bugs