How to open a file manager of the current directory in the terminal?

Question

When I work in terminal, sometimes I want to open the current directory in a GUI file manager. And then to click the items in the window to run the application. How can I do this?

Solution 1

The following works in all desktop environments by using the default file manager:

xdg-open .

You can also open files from the terminal as if you had double clicked them in the file manager:

xdg-open file

Solution 2

Problem

This tip will explain How to open a file manager of the current directory in the terminal

Solution 1

The following works in all desktop environments by using the default file manager:

xdg-open .

Solution 2

You can also open files from the terminal as if you had double clicked them in the file manager:

xdg-open file

Solution 3

If you are using Gnome, you can use the gnome-open command, like so:

gnome-open .

Solution 4

You can use nautilus [path]. for current directory -

nautilus .

Solution 3

You write nautilus [path]. for current directory -

nautilus .

Solution 4

In Ubuntu 20.04, you can just say browse . to open the current directory

Solution 5

If you are using GNOME, you can use the gnome-open command, like so:

gnome-open .

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Comments

[dv3500ea]

I don't think this question is an exact duplicate. There are many similar questions with some identical answers but none of the questions have the exact same focus as this question. The closest question is How to open a directory/folder and a URL through Terminal

[CypherX]

Tried all the answers below. The ones that worked on Ubuntu 20.04 are: xdg-open ., nautilus ., browse .. But gnome-open . did not work as-is (I guess either gnome is not installed or there's some other reason for that). Nonethless, this is to confirm what worked as of 01-Feb-2022.

[vidur punj]

To use it first install: sudo apt install libgnome2-bin

[WesternGun]

This is the most complete one and should be the answer. Works in RedHat 7.2 x64.

[The Godfather]

Doesn't work for Ubuntu 16

[The Godfather]

I wonder why isn't there common command for opening whatever the GUI is. I have tried all commands from above answers and no one worked for me. This is the only working on Ubuntu

[Tim]

Is there a way to open gnome as sudo? I tried sudo gnome-open . with no luck.

[рüффп]

Works in CentOS 6.10 as well.

[gdaras]

This has the disadvantage that you have to keep terminal window alive while you are navigating. If you kill the window, the file explorer gets killed too.

[Vladislav Rastrusny]

This is easily solved by adding & to the end like this: nautilus . &

[Nino Filiu]

@TheGodfather it works it Ubuntu 18.04

[danilo]

for ubuntu, uses: caja, or nautilus

[cbloss793]

Works like a charm in Ubuntu 18. :) Thanks for this!

[Drazen Cika]

Works for me in Ubuntu 16.04

[Jules Colle]

This is easier to remember for me.

[vulpxn]

This shows a deprecation warning, the newer command is gio open . (Centos 7)

[Asocia]

browse is just a symlink to xdg-open. So you can use both of them in the same way. (i.e you can also open files with browse)

[zean_7]

Is there a similar command to "Choose a file"? e.g. It will open the default file manager and you can choose/select a file and it'll return the file's absolute path? More like a "File-picker"?