HOWTO: Add a "Search Folder" option to Nautilus's right-click/context menu.

**mc4man** · June 10th, 2011

Originally Posted by Ashrael

Hello!

I tried this in Natty and found out that Nautilus Action Configuration has been upgraded to v 3.0.5, so your howto is not up to date anymore. Especially in Natty/Unity it's vital to be able to search from context menu.

GRTZ!

Am on 11.10, but same diff. - see screens, should get you going
(when entering a Mimetype or Basename, after typing press enter on keyboard to set, no mouse

**rCXer** · June 16th, 2011

Ashrael, thanks for the PM. I don't have Natty yet (sorry) but I'll try my best to help out.

mc4man did you get it to work? If so could you write out detailed instructions on how you did it. I'll add your instructions to the first post.

**mc4man** · June 16th, 2011

mc4man did you get it to work?

Sure - works fine on natty (NA 3.0.5) and on O (11.10) where I'm using a built NA 3.1.4 because there is no current repo package that works.

I know many have complained about how 'complicated' the 3.X.X Na's are but they're not really once you get the idea. (though I did like the simplicity of the earlier versions

The 2 screens above show how I did your "Search Folder" action, as noted for mimetype - after entering I've found you need to press enter to set, not use mouse to 'click out'

The mimetype and basename work well, some of the others ones not at all, (or I've yet to understand them), and i haven't yet seen if multiple mimetypes can be allowed per action (like for various audio files, ect.

Also exporting between 3.X and 2.x versions doesn't completely work the few times I've tried, sometimes close but not exactly correct
(and in 11.10 exporting is quite hit or miss at the moment

**vanadium** · June 30th, 2011

I do not get it to work. With the parameters as indicated in your screenshot, gnome-search-tool always opens in Documents for me.

- edit - and it suddenly worked after I added the --hidden option and changed the Profile Label back to "Default profile" (to mach the screenshot exactly) ...

**startling** · January 25th, 2012

I apologise in advance if this seems a silly response but I assure you it's meant to be helpful. While I like some things about Ubuntu and Unity it seems to me to be a bit immature in its development.

On Windows, Agent Ransack is a superb search utility that integrates into the right-click context menu of Explorer and it's fast too. I've tried other search options in Ubuntu but none of the ones I've tried work as well or as simply as Agent Ransack. Recently using Ubuntu's search it didn't find the file at all, but the same search in Agent Ransack found several files in seconds.

So my solution to this problem is to run Windows XP in a VirtualBox virtual machine and use Agent Ransack to search folders. I know this might seem crazy but I haven't found an alternative method in Ubuntu 11.10 with Unity - if anyone can tell me otherwise I'd be delighted.

**Ashrael** · April 26th, 2013

@startling: I have completely removed Zeitgeist etc, because it slows my machine down too much. I use gnome-do to do all searches. Don't know if it beats your w*nd*ws alternative.

Still it would be nice to have a contect menu entry in 12.04.

**startling** · April 26th, 2013

Originally Posted by Ashrael

@startling: I have completely removed Zeitgeist etc, because it slows my machine down too much.

@Ashrael: I have removed Ubuntu because it slows my machine down too much! ;-)

I've moved to Debian with XFCE and the speed increase is noticeable. Resources and CPU used is a lot lower. I'm really enjoying Debian/XFCE and I wish I had migrated away sooner. I'll always be grateful to Ubuntu and its developers but I think it's a shame the way Ubuntu seems to be heading. There seems to be a lot of non-optional bloat. What eventually made me make the move was that Ubuntu kept crashing (it was like using Win98 all over again!). I know there's Xubuntu, but my experience of Ubuntu changing so much over the last few years made me worry that something might happen there too, so I made the decision to abandon *buntu altogether.

**startling** · April 27th, 2013

@Ashrael:

P.S. I have heard that the developers of Zeitgeist warn users not to uninstall it. I guess because it's so tightly integrated into Ubuntu (just like the way a certain Redmond-based company does with its products!) that it might be a bad idea. I don't know if the crashes I kept getting on a daily basis were due to my removing Zeitgeist, but anyway that's when I thought, time to move and Debian looks the best fit.

Have you noticed any system instability since removing Zeitgeist?