Chapter 16. Managing bookmarks in GNOME

In GNOME, you can edit the bookmarks that are displayed in applications and dialogs that manage files.

16.1. Bookmarks in GNOME

Bookmarks integrate into GTK+ and in the GNOME desktop. Every application that presents a standard GTK+ Open and Save dialog (GtkFileChooser) lists bookmarks in the left panel of the dialog. Also, Files and its clones present bookmarks in a sidebar.

Besides bookmarks, GtkFileChooser lists all other available GVFS volumes and mounts in the sidebar.

While activating a bookmark for the first time, the GVFS subsystem looks for existing mounts and tries to mount the location if the mount does not exist yet. This way, you can authenticate even within the Open or Save dialog.

Bookmarks are located in the ~/.config/gtk-3.0/bookmarks file. In the following example, the bookmarked locations are ~/Music, ~/Pictures, ~/Videos, ~/Downloads, and ~/bin, so the content of the ~/.config/gtk-3.0/bookmarks file looks as follows: 

file:///home/username/Music
file:///home/username/Pictures
file:///home/username/Videos
file:///home/username/Downloads
file:///home/username/bin
Note

Replace username with the user name you are logged in.

You can use this file to edit bookmarks based on your requirements.

16.2. Adding a bookmark in Files

You can save a reference to a location by bookmarking it.

Procedure

  1. Select the folder or file you want to bookmark.

  2. Do one of the following:

    • Press Ctrl+D or
    • Drag and drop the file or folder to the sidebar.

16.3. Adding a bookmark for all users

As a system administrator, you can set a bookmark for several users at once so that file shares are easily accessible to all the users.

Procedure

  1. In the home directory of each existing user, edit the ~user/.config/gtk-3.0/bookmarks file.

  2. In the file, add a Uniform Resource Identifiers (URI) line that identifies the bookmark.

    For example, the following lines add bookmarks to the /usr/share/doc/ directory and to the GNOME FTP network share: 

    file:///usr/share/doc/
ftp://ftp.gnome.org/

  3. Optional: To also add the bookmarks for every newly created user on the system:

    1. Create the /etc/skel/.config/gtk-3.0/bookmarks file.
    2. Enter the bookmark URI lines in the file.