Nautilus-Plus

Enhanced GNOME Files (Nautilus) with performance optimizations and extended features.

Repository: https://github.com/johnzfitch/nautilus-plus AUR Package: nautilus-plus Based on: GNOME Nautilus 50.alpha

Features

• Fast Search - Sub-millisecond search via search-cache integration (2.3M+ files indexed)
• Larger Thumbnails - HUGE (384px) and GIGANTIC (512px) zoom levels for media files
• Search Results Limit - Configurable limit (default 1000) prevents memory exhaustion
• FUSE Mount Detection - 1-second timeout prevents UI hangs on stale remote mounts
• Crash Prevention - Lifecycle management fixes prevent use-after-free crashes

Installation (Arch Linux)

Option 1: AUR Package (Recommended)

yay -S nautilus-plus search-cache
systemctl --user enable --now search-cache

Option 2: Build from Source

git clone https://github.com/johnzfitch/nautilus-plus
cd nautilus-plus
meson setup build
ninja -C build
sudo ninja -C build install

⚠️ IMPORTANT: search-cache Requirement

Nautilus-Plus requires search-cache daemon to be running for fast search.

Without search-cache:

• ❌ Search will be very slow (recursively scans every file)
• ❌ High CPU usage during search
• ❌ Fans may spin up

With search-cache:

• ✅ Sub-millisecond search (uses trigram index)
• ✅ Low CPU usage
• ✅ Instant results

Verify search-cache is Running

systemctl --user status search-cache

Should show: Active: active (running)

If not running:

systemctl --user start search-cache
systemctl --user enable search-cache  # Auto-start on boot

Check Indexed Files

sc stats

Should show your file count (e.g., "Files indexed: 2313792")

Configuration

Search Results Limit

Open Preferences → Performance and adjust "Search Results Limit"

• Default: 1000
• Range: 0-10000 (0 = unlimited, not recommended)

Or via command line:

gsettings set org.gnome.nautilus.preferences search-results-limit 2000

Larger Thumbnails

Use the zoom slider or:

# Set to GIGANTIC (512px)
gsettings set org.gnome.nautilus.icon-view default-zoom-level 6

Zoom levels:

• 0 = Small (48px)
• 1 = Small Plus (64px)
• 2 = Medium (96px)
• 3 = Large (168px)
• 4 = Extra Large (256px)
• 5 = HUGE (384px) ⭐ NEW
• 6 = GIGANTIC (512px) ⭐ NEW

Performance

Memory Usage:

• Small directory (100 files): ~3.8 MB
• Medium directory (1,000 files): ~3.8 MB
• Large directory (10,000 files): ~3.8 MB

Search Performance (with search-cache):

• 2.3M files: <1ms
• No CPU spike
• Instant results

Troubleshooting

Search is slow / high CPU usage

Cause: search-cache daemon not running

Fix:

systemctl --user start search-cache
systemctl --user enable search-cache

No search results

Cause: search-cache index needs rebuilding

Fix:

sc rebuild

Search-cache not starting

Check the service logs:

journalctl --user -u search-cache -n 50

Common issues:

• Index corruption → Run sc rebuild
• Permission issues → Check ~/.local/share/search-cache/
• Out of memory → Reduce index size or increase swap

Documentation

• Installation Guide
• Search Blacklist Guide
• Detailed Installation

Upstream

Nautilus-Plus is a fork of GNOME Nautilus.

For upstream issues, use the GNOME issue tracker.

For nautilus-plus specific issues, use GitHub Issues.

License

GPL-3.0-or-later (same as upstream GNOME Nautilus)