How to reduce the spacing between icons in nautilus?

Question

Is it possible reduce the horizontal spacing between icons in nautilus? I would like my layout to be more compact. I know that we can change the zoom level of the icons, but i want the icon size to remain the same.

Here's a screenshot for better idea

Solution 1

Ok thanks to your message I found a solution which works for me in nautilus 3.x. In dconf-editor, modify thumbnail-size, located in org->gnome->nautilus->icon-view

I set it to 128 and it is now exactly like the "make it more compact" option I used to love in nautilus/gnome 2.x!

I don't know if this is what you were looking for, but for me there is almost no space left between my icons and using my favorite thumbnailer program; "cover thumbnailer". It is simply ace!

Cheese, thanks for the idea of using a gnome editor!

Solution 2

This option (Compact Layout) was removed from Nautilus (like many other useful features). To get this feature (and many others) back, you might want to have a look at Nemo: http://www.webupd8.org/2013/10/install-nemo-with-unity-patches-and.html

It's basically Nautilus (to be precise, a fork of v3.4) with all the great features that were present in previous versions and the improvements from the current version, plus some nice extras you won't find in any Nautilus version.

In Nemo, the option is in the right-click menu of any folder (Arrange Items > Compact Layout). If you want to set it as default for all folders, you can set it in the preferences.

Solution 3

Looking at possible configurations with gconf-editor, I'm afraid it is not possible without changing the source code and recompiling Nautilus.

Comments

[Sanam Patel]

I just tried this and it had no effect. Are there any steps missing?

[Jesse]

You have to restart Nautilus for it to take effect. Try killall nautilus (just to be sure), then open it again.

[Jesse]

This setting is the size of the thumbnails in proportion to the other icons when the icons are 48px. So for eg setting it to 96 specifies that thumbnails should be 2x the size of the other icons.