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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 4.21.1 released (2025/05/16 09:07)thunar 4.21.1 is now available for download from https://archive.xfce.org/src/xfce/thunar/4.21/thunar-4.21.1.tar.xz https://archive.xfce.org/src/xfce/thunar/4.21/thunar-4.21.1.tar.xz?sha1 https://archive.xfce.org/src/xfce/thunar/4.21/thunar-4.21.1.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 4.21.1 ======================== [Please note that this is a development release.] Development release on the master branch. Changelog: Bugfixes: - search: Avoid saving last view type when closing tab - search: Fix Catfish button visibility - search: Fix critical when closing tabs - search: Fix Back/Forward button functionality - Do not recursively delete dirs in unwritable PWD - Always warn user before permanent deleting files - Fix string leaks when UCAs use a submenu - Fix a potential leak in thunar_action_manager_append_custom_actions - Fix leaks with ThunarMenuX objects - Fix thunarx_menu_get_items leak when multiple UCAs share a submenu - Fix leak in thunar_location_entry_emit_edit_done (#1622) - Avoid unneccessary refresh of the view - Fix refresh on row-changed in list view (#1584) - Use default zoom level if no dir specific zoom level is set (#1104) - Fix VirtualBox DnD detection (#113) - Fix initiating location edit while in search mode (#1577) - Fix location bar wrongly leaving search mode (#1577) - Add missing NULL check before unref call - meson-build: Use configure_file() to generate GNU visibility files - Fix popup position of DnD menu - UCA: Correct PWD for submenu folder items (#1615) - Allow DnD from host to guest VM (#113) - wayland: Fix popup menu not closing (#1592) - Check if file exists before opening its location (#1257) - Trust launchers after icon modification - Prevent popups on wrong window (#1591) - meson-build: Add polkit option - meson-build: Fix manpage install dir - Prevent criticals when switching current view (#1344) - Fix crash when destroying folder in list view (#1330) (#1568) Maintenance: - Decouple trash and unlinking interfaces - Refactor thunar_application_unlink_files - Rework thunar_window_delete - Limit maximum number of file watches (#1552) - Move "folder first" setting into "arrange items" menu (#967) - Use ThunarZoomLevel enum instead of gint - search: Clean up signal handling - Translations: Allow to swap string arguments (#1609) - Tweak "Search for" string - search: Add space at end of prefix outside translation - Rename search related variables - Move focus grab in thunar_window_set_current_directory - Clean up thunar_window_selection_changed - Rename thunar_file_get_item_count - Remove outdated "Hacking" document - Remove outdated xmi UML diagrams New Features: - search: Exit search mode with Back button (#786) - search: Restart search when pressing Enter - Add possibility to set custom file icons - Add ability to stop a search (#1373) - twp: Add support for mime types 'jxl', 'avif', and 'webp' Translation Updates: Albanian, Arabic, Armenian, Armenian (Armenia), Asturian, Basque, Belarusian, Bengali, Bulgarian, Catalan, Chinese (China), Chinese (Hong Kong), Chinese (Taiwan), Czech, Danish, Dutch, Eastern Armenian, English (Australia), English (United Kingdom), Esperanto, Estonian, Finnish, French, Galician, Georgian, German, Greek, Hebrew, Hungarian, Icelandic, Indonesian, Interlingue, Italian, Japanese, Kazakh, Latvian, Malay, Norwegian Bokmål, Norwegian Nynorsk, Occitan (post 1500), Persian (Iran), Polish, Portuguese, Portuguese (Brazil), Romanian, Serbian, Slovak, Slovenian, Spanish, Swedish, Thai, Turkish, Uyghur, Venetian, 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