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 4.21.0 released (2025/03/23 11:51)thunar 4.21.0 is now available for download from https://archive.xfce.org/src/xfce/thunar/4.21/thunar-4.21.0.tar.xz https://archive.xfce.org/src/xfce/thunar/4.21/thunar-4.21.0.tar.xz?sha1 https://archive.xfce.org/src/xfce/thunar/4.21/thunar-4.21.0.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 4.21.0 ======================== Development release on the master branch 4.21.0 (2025-03-23) ====== - Fix crash in properties dialog (#1585) - Replace deprecated exo with libxfce4ui 4.21.0 - docs: Fix unused declarations warning - build: Bump some min versions and remove #ifdefs - Set minimum size of filename input image - Merge ExoJob Into ThunarJob - file: Don't use deprecated exo_str_is_empty - Improve error message on copy fail (#1570) - Fix invalid filenames when copying to exFAT FS (#1570) - Fix typo in preferences dialog - Hide shortcuts editor when accel map uninitialized (#1488) - scan-build: Add false positive file - scan-build: Fix core.uninitialized.Assign - scan-build: Fix core.NullDereference - scan-build: Fix deadcode.DeadStores - gcc-analyzer: Add false positive file - gcc-analyzer: Fix -Wanalyzer-possible-null-argument - gcc-analyzer: Fix -Wanalyzer-null-dereference - gcc-analyzer: Fix -Wanalyzer-use-of-uninitialized-value - gcc-analyzer: Fix -Wanalyzer-possible-null-dereference - build: Automate copyright year management - Add meson build - docs: Remove thunar directory - build: Migrate to xdt-gen-visibility and xdt-check-abi - build: Make libx11 optional and use XDT_CHECK_OPTIONAL_FEATURE - build: Preliminary cleanup - properties-dialog: Improve size label strings - properties-dialog: Add tooltip to "Original Path" - properties-dialog: Relocate "Deleted" line - properties-dialog: Remove link target from type description - Update statusbar when searching (#1560) - image-preview: Use italics for the size label - image-preview: Do not rely on xfconf value for visibility toggle - image-preview: Properly initialize the preview on startup - I18n: Update po/LINGUAS list - Always update statusbar on file changes in list view (#1560) - Add List view hotkeys to shortcuts editor tab (#1556) - Fix item activation on double-click in list view (#1567) - Use 'malloc_trim' after search (#1552) - Fix missing dialog for folder errors in list view (#1538) - Fix leak on search update - Fix leaks on "cancel search" - Update file permission related emblem names - properties-dialog: Use file type icon as window icon - Fix missing dialog window icon (#1506) - Properly check if a file can be trashed (#1554) - Improve widgets in properties dialog (#1537) - Fix wrong selection after rename in list view (#1415) - build: Get rid of maintainer mode where gdbus-codegen is used - Prevent location bar crash (#1539) - Reallow sorting in search mode (#1528) - drop = in -export-symbols-regex arg - Hide the launcher for thunar-settings (#1530) - Fix signal emitting (#1533) - Fix GMount leak in thunar_file_get_emblem_names - Remove superfluous mutex - Store g_files separately in jobs (#1542) - thunar-tpa: Fix libxfce4panel include - Pass g_files into jobs instead of ThunarFiles (#1542) - Store g_files separately in jobs (#1542) - Ask for confirmation when deleting trashed files (#1545) - Proper renaming of XDG user dirs (#1436) - Prevent files from vanishing after save (#1535) - Fix selection after toggling hidden files visibility (#1505) - Clean up location button context menu (#1441) - Fix wrong selection after rename (#1415) - build: Dist thunar-{thumbnailer,thumbnail-cache}-dbus.xml - thunarx.symbols: Add missing thunarx_provider_module_* - Do not save view settings when searching (#1502) - Select instead activate on DnD into toolbar (#1492) - Prevent crash when removing location button (#1507) - Fix throttling of selection updates (#1508) (#1515) - Make toolbar inside header-bar transparent (#1514) - Add setting to show non hidden folders/files first (#263) - Fix appstream metainfo (#1512) - Prevent crash when loading mount point emblem (#1511) - remove superflous spaces in strings (#1501) Translation Updates: Albanian, Arabic, Armenian, Armenian (Armenia), Asturian, Basque, Belarusian, Bulgarian, Catalan, Chinese (China), Chinese (Hong Kong), Chinese (Taiwan), Czech, Danish, Dutch, Eastern Armenian, English (Australia), English (United Kingdom), Esperanto, Estonian, Finnish, French, Galician, German, Greek, Hebrew, Hungarian, Icelandic, Indonesian, Interlingue, Italian, Japanese, Kazakh, 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