Nautilus File Manager Is Getting a New Global Search Mode in GNOME 46

The GNOME 46 desktop environment is still a couple of months away and more new features are being added these days to various of its default apps and components, including the Nautilus (Files) file manager, which received a new global search mode.

As part of the GNOME 46 development cycle, Nautilus received a bunch of new features and enhancements for better file management in GNOME, including improved discoverability of custom folder icons, detection of copy/move operations of files over the 4GB limit on FAT filesystems, ~~a new Network view~~ (the Network view has been postponed for a future release), and much more.

It also received a few improvements to its search capabilities, such as the ability to treat markdown files as text documents when searching, and now, Nautilus has received a new explicit global search mode that should be available for public testing as part of the upcoming GNOME 46 beta release, due out next week.

Nautilus as we know it, in the GNOME 45 desktop environment series, already has a “Search Everywhere” feature, which expands the search scope when searching for files to let you search in more locations.

Now, it would appear that the “Search Everywhere” feature was turned into a global search feature in the upcoming GNOME 46 release. The new global search mode is implemented in the search button, which has been moved into the sidebar.

When pressing this search button, Nautilus will display the Search Everywhere view to let you find files and folders in all the search locations that you’ve defined in the Search panel in Settings. This is now consistent with most of the default GNOME apps, which display the search button on the left side of the titlebar.

The global search view will also give you quick access to the Search Locations setting through an “Open Search Settings” button that will be displayed before starting the search and when no search results are found.

For more details about Nautilus’ new global search mode, you can check out this merge request. Meanwhile, we’re waiting for the beta release of GNOME 46 to take this new feature for a spin.