Most file managers I’ve encountered default to icon view. One of the first things I do is set the default to detailed list view. Might be a preference for seeing names and dates over many identical folder icons, or just an old habit from using Windows. But I’d be curious to hear about the benefits of icon view and why it’s usually the default in Linux GUI file managers.
What does everyone else use and any reasons to prefer one over the other?
Terminal.
All jokes aside, its personal preference. If you’re working in a dense file tree, you probably need the info that details view gives you. Icon view really only matter for media.
Detail unless it’s pictures or something where the icon is a preview of the file’s content.
ranger, a terminal file browser, which is obviously a list
if i need a gui file browser, i use pcmanfm with normal grid view
ls -hal
ls -shitwhich is (iirc, guessing from memory): block size, human readable sizes, inodes, sort by time.
I mostly prefer Detail view, but I enable Icon view in Videos, Photos, and Music folders so I can see previews.
I’m guessing most file managers have similar behavior, but on XFCE Thunar, I’m able to set detail as the default but have it remembery choice per folder.
Dolphin filemanager from KDE. Nowadays I default to “compact” view without “preview” enabled. This is similar to “Icon” view, but the icons are small. Lot of files scrolls horizontal instead vertical.
- filenames in compact mode can be longer in one line, which is kind of similar to the look as “details” view, but are all displayed in a multiple rows instead one row
- preview disabled, because this is extremely fast, as I have ton of files that do not even have a preview image
That’s my default. Occasionally I enable preview image and switch to bigger “icon” view when I look into images or videos. Or sometimes I enable “details” view when needed. In normal usage I don’t need the details anyway.
My graphical goto tool is double commander, so lists. In the terminal, it’s either ls -hal, fzf or mc, depending on use case.
