Ade Malsasa Akbar contact
Senior author, Open Source enthusiast.
Sunday, October 18, 2015 at 20:50

After Thunar, we come with PCManFM. This is the LXDE file manager. You'll find PCManFM in Lubuntu. PCManFM is a very lightweight file manager yet powerful. It has search facility, something Thunar doesn't. It has F3 Split View also, something Nautilus doesn't anymore. And just like another file managers available in Linux, it has multitab feature. We hope this article helps anyone using Lubuntu or any LXDE based Linux everywhere. Enjoy.

Overview

 

  1. Menubar. 
  2. Toolbar (new tab, back, forward, up, home). 
  3. Address bar. 
  4. Left panel (places or tree). 
  5. Main area. 
  6. Statusbar.

Concepts

  1. PCManFM has simple appearance like Thunar but it has more features. 
  2. PCManFM has split view. 
  3. PCManFM has similar default left panel like OS X Finder and Nautilus but has tree view hidden.

New Tab

To open new tab, press Ctrl+T. To close current tab, press Ctrl+W.



New Folder

To create a new folder, right-click main area > Create New > Folder.

Delete Folder

To delete folder not permanently, select a folder > Move to Trash. To delete permanently, select a folder > Shift+Delete.

Split View 

To split view, press F3. To revert it back, press F3 again.



Fullscreen

To show fullscreen mode of PCManFM, press F11.

Search Files

To search files, press Ctrl+Shift+F or access menu Tools > Find Files.



Open With Terminal

To open a folder in Terminal directly, enter a folder > open menu Tools > Open Current Folder in Terminal.

Sort Files

To sort files, right-click main area > Sort Files > select one criteria. You can sort by Name, Size, Type, and Date.