PCManFM - ArchWiki

# PCManFM

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- LXDE
- Openbox
- File manager functionality
- SpaceFM
- Thunar
- GNOME Files
- Nemo

PCManFM is a free file manager application and the standard file manager of LXDE.

## Installation

Install the pcmanfm package, pcmanfm-gtk3 for the GTK3 version or pcmanfm-gitAUR for the development version.

Qt variants are available with pcmanfm-qt and pcmanfm-qt-gitAUR.

gvfs is recommended for trash support, mounting with udisks and remote filesystems.

## Desktop management

The command to allow PCManFM to set wallpapers and enable the use of desktop icons is:

    pcmanfm --desktop

The native desktop menu of the window manager will be replaced with that provided by PCManFM. However, it can easily be restored from the PCManFM menu itself by selecting `Desktop preferences` and then enabling the `Right click shows WM menu` option in the `Desktop` tab.

### Desktop preferences

If using the native desktop menu provided by a window manager, enter the following command to set or amend desktop preferences at any time:

    $ pcmanfm --desktop-pref

It is worthwhile to consider adding this command to a keybind and/or the native desktop menu for easy access.

### Creating new icons

User content such as text files, documents, images and so forth can be dragged and dropped directly onto the desktop. To create shortcuts for applications it will be necessary to copy their `.desktop` files to the `~/Desktop` directory itself. Do not drag and drop the files there as they will be moved completely. The syntax of the command to do so is:

    cp /usr/share/applications/<name of application>.desktop ~/Desktop

For example - where installed - to create a desktop shortcut for lxterminal, the following command would be used:

    cp /usr/share/applications/lxterminal.desktop ~/Desktop

For those who used the XDG user directories program to create their `$HOME` directories no further configuration will be required.

## Daemon mode

To run PCManFM in the background (to for example automatically mount removable media), use:

    pcmanfm -d

Should automount fail, see udisks.

## Autostarting

How PCManFM may be autostarted as a daemon process or to manage the desktop for a standalone window manager will depend on the window manager itself. For example, to enable management of the desktop for Openbox, the following command would be added to the `~/.config/openbox/autostart` file:

    pcmanfm --desktop &

Review the relevant wiki article and/or official home page for a particular installed or intended window manager. Should a window manager not provide an autostart file, PCManFM may be alternatively autostarted by editing one or both of the following files:

- xinitrc: When using the SLiM display manager or Startx command
- xprofile: When using a display manager such as LXDM or LightDM

## Additional features and functionality

Less experienced users should be aware that a file manager alone - especially when installed in a standalone Window manager such as Openbox - will not provide the features and functionality users of full desktop environments such as Xfce and KDE will be accustomed to. Review the file manager functionality article for further information.

## Tips and tricks

### Get thumbnails for other file types

This article or section is a candidate for merging with File manager functionality#Thumbnail previews.

Notes: This section is not specific to PCManFM. (Discuss in Talk:PCManFM#)

PCManFM supports image thumbnails out of the box. However, in order to view thumbnails of other file types, PCManFM uses the information provided in the files located at `/usr/share/thumbnailers`. The packages which provide a thumbnailer usually add the corresponding .thumbnail file at `/usr/share/thumbnailers`. For example, in order to get thumbnails for OpenDocument files, you may install libgsf from the official repositories. For video files' thumbnails, the package ffmpegthumbnailer is required. For PDF files, you may install evince from the official repositories, which provides `evince-thumbnailer` and the corresponding file at `/usr/share/thumbnailers`. However, if you prefer not to install `evince`, you can also replicate the functionality of `evince-thumbnailer` using imagemagick's `convert` command. This is accomplished by creating a new file with the .thumbnailer extension (e.g.: `imagemagick-pdf.thumbnailer`) at `/usr/share/thumbnailers` with the following content:

      [Thumbnailer Entry]
      TryExec=convert
      Exec=convert %i[0] -background "#FFFFFF" -flatten -thumbnail %s %o
      MimeType=application/pdf;application/x-pdf;image/pdf;

Note: The [0] next to the input file is specified so that `convert` only generates a thumbnail of the first page. This is a `convert`-specific syntax and has nothing to do with the syntax of the thumbnailers' files.

Following this example, you can specify custom thumbnailers by creating your own .thumbnail files. Keep in mind that `%i` refers to the input file (the file which will have its thumbnail made), `%o` to the output file (the thumbnail image) and `%s` to the size of the thumbnail. These parameters will be automatically substituted with the corresponding data and passed to the thumbnailer program by PCManFM.

Tip: If you only get thumbnails of certain files and not of all the files of the same type try increasing the maximum file size of the files that get a thumbnail at Edit > Preferences > Display.

### Set the terminal emulator

You can configure what terminal emulator PCManFM should use for Tools > Open Current Folder in Terminal under Edit > Preferences > Advanced.

i.e "bash -c 'termite'"

### Integrate an archiver

You can choose the integrated archiver under Edit > Preferences > Advanced. PCManFM supports file-roller, xarchiver (or xarchiver-gtk2), engrampa, ark and squeeze-gitAUR.

### Templates are accessible under Create New...

PCManFM adds the files in `~/Templates` as Create New... context menu items on startup.

### Thumbnails

Like some other file managers (e.g. Nautilus) PCManFM will load previews of all images in a folder. To not abuse the HDD, keep the number of images in a folder to a hundred.

## Troubleshooting

### Open With dialog window empty

If you do not see any applications to choose from in the open with dialog, then you can try removing gnome-menus and instead install lxmenu-data. Furthermore, export the following variables:

    export XDG_MENU_PREFIX=lxde-
    export XDG_CURRENT_DESKTOP=LXDE

### No "Applications"

You can try this method: Delete all files in the `$HOME/.cache/menus` directory, and run PCManFM again.

PCManFM requires the environment variable XDG_MENU_PREFIX to be set. The value of the variable should match the beginning of a file present in the `/etc/xdg/menus/` directory. E.g. you can set the value in your `.xinitrc` file with the line:

    export XDG_MENU_PREFIX="lxde-"

See these threads for more information: [1], and especially this post from the Linux Mint forums: [2]

### No icons

If you are using a window manager instead of a desktop environment and you have no icons for folders and files, specify a GTK icon theme.

If you have e.g. oxygen-icons installed, edit `~/.gtkrc-2.0` or `/etc/gtk-2.0/gtkrc` and add the following line:

    gtk-icon-theme-name = "oxygen"

Note: All instances of PCManFM have to be restarted for changes to apply!

Else, use an different one (gnome, hicolor, and locolor do not work). To list all installed icon themes:

    $ ls ~/.icons/ /usr/share/icons/

If none of them is suitable, install one. To list all installable icon packages:

    $ pacman -Ss icon-theme

Tip: For an alternative GUI solution, install lxappearance and apply an icon theme from there.

### No "Previous/Next Folder" functionality with mouse buttons

A method to fix this is with Xbindkeys.

Install xbindkeysAUR, xvkbdAUR and edit `~/.xbindkeysrc` to contain the following:

    # Sample .xbindkeysrc for a G9x mouse.
    "/usr/bin/xvkbd -text '\[Alt_L]\[Left]'"
     b:8
    "/usr/bin/xvkbd -text '\[Alt_L]\[Right]'"
     b:9

Actual button codes can be obtained with package xorg-xev.

Add:

    xbindkeys &

to your `~/.xinitrc` to execute xbindkeys on log-in.

### --desktop parameter not working or crashing X-server

Make sure you have ownership and write permissions on `~/.config/pcmanfm`.

Setting the wallpaper either by using the `--desktop-pref` parameter or editing `~/.config/pcmanfm/default/pcmanfm.config` solves the problem.

### Terminal emulator advanced configuration not saved

Make sure you have rights on libfm configuration file:

    $ chmod -R 755 ~/.config/libfm
    $ chmod 644 ~/.config/libfm/libfm.conf

### Make PCManFM remember your preferred Sort Files settings

You can use View > Sort Files to change the order in which PCManFM lists the files, but PCManFM won't remember that the next time you start it. To make it remember, go to Edit > Preferences and close. That will write your current sort_type and sort_by values into `~/.config/pcmanfm/LXDE/pcmanfm.conf`.

### "Not authorized" error when attempting to mount drive

Make this polkit rule in `/etc/polkit-1/rules.d/00-mount-internal.rules`:

    polkit.addRule(function(action, subject) {
       if ((action.id == "org.freedesktop.udisks2.filesystem-mount-system" &&
          subject.local && subject.active && subject.isInGroup("storage")))
          {
             return polkit.Result.YES;
          }
    });

And add your user to storage group:

    # usermod -aG storage username

### Operation not supported

See the General troubleshooting article on Session permissions.

### Passwords are forgotten on system restart

Install a keyring application like GNOME/Keyring, KDE Wallet or lxqt_walletAUR for network shares or an SSH agent if appropriate.

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