There’s a boatload of things you can do with GNOME’s file browser, Nautilus. Some of my favorite tricks are listed below.

Remote File Management

When I’m using Windows, I always turn to WinSCP for my GUI SCP needs. When I use Linux, there is no WinSCP. Lo and behold, you can just type ssh://user@host:/path/to/dir in your Nautilus address bar and it will prompt you for a password (you can also FTP and SFTP using Nautilus). You’ll then have access to the filesystem and can cut, copy, and paste files as you wish. You can also graphically edit files through using whatever tools you have installed on the local machine. Alternately, there’s the fish:// protocol which works in Konqueror (KDE). As far as I know, it only works on Konqueror and doesn’t work in Nautilus.

Trash Management

If you want to delete a file for good instead of putting it in the trash, fire up Nautilus and go to Edit -> Preferences -> Behavior. Check the box labeled “Include a Delete command that bypasses Trash”. On that same window, you can uncheck the box “Ask before emptying the Trash or deleting files” to skip the confirmation step when emptying your trash bin.

Show/Hide Hidden Files

There are two ways to accomplish this. The easy way is to toggle display by pressing Ctrl-H. The other way is in Edit -> Preferences with the “Show hidden and backup files” checkbox.

Browse filesystem as Root
Start a new desktop configuration file in the /usr/share/applications directory.

sudo vim /usr/share/applications/Nautilus-root.desktop

Add the following lines to the new file:

[Desktop Entry]
Name=File Browser (Root)
Comment=Browse the filesystem with the file manager
Exec=gksudo "nautilus --browser %U"
Icon=file-manager
Terminal=false
Type=Application
Categories=Application;System;

Save the file and close Vim. To start Nautilus as the root user, choose Applications -> System Tools -> File Browser (Root), and you’ll be prompted for the root password.