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I've this strange behavior on Ubuntu 20.04 (also with the 19 version) where I'm not able to select a file on the desktop and move it inside an open folder or vice versa. Someone knows if it is normal or there is a way to fix it?

And also I'm not able to delete files on desktop with the Del key, I've to right click on them and then click move to trash - otherwise no way.

guntbert
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Luca Faraoni
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6 Answers6

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Right click on the file/Dir-> show in Files. This will open the files window and now you'll be able to drag and drop.

UDHAYA KUMAR
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Yes, Drag and Drop is an issue most people find in Ubuntu. The reason behind the drag and drop not working is the experimental view of the Nautilus File Manager.

To fix this, all you have to do is to disable the experimental view again.

Open the Nautilus file manager and click on the top left Files and go to Preferences. Clear the “Use the new views” option under Experimental.

You can also refer to already published questions here.

sarru1291
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    Not applicable to 20.04. The question you linked is for Ubuntu 17.10. Desktop icons are not even handled by Nautilus anymore like older versions, they are handled by a GNOME Shell extension. – pomsky Apr 26 '20 at 10:12
  • The problem is that I cannot find the nautilus file manager. If i just refer to the file folder, then in the top left Files I've not the PReferences option but just "Home", "New window", "Show Details" and "Quit". – Luca Faraoni Apr 27 '20 at 11:26
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    @LucaFaraoni You can find the Settings on the top right corner of Nautilus window (see here). But there is no setting to disable Experimental view in 20.04, as pomsky mentioned. – Vadim Kotov Jul 08 '20 at 08:26
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The reason behind the drag and drop not working was the experimental view of GNOME Files (previously known as Nautilus).

To fix this, all you have to do is to disable the experimental view again. Following is the command to do so

gsettings set org.gnome.nautilus.preferences use-experimental-views false

I hope this quick tip helped you to fix the annoying drag and drop issue in Ubuntu. If you have questions or suggestions, do leave a comment below.

Faisal
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I am also just starting with Ubuntu 20, many new amazing things work out of the box but the Desktop behaviour feels indeed "experimental", and I wasn't able to deactivate it with the other suggestions in this post.

So far, I found a slightly ridiculous but effective workaround to move around multiple files, hopefully it helps getting insight into the other issues:

  1. Click and drag to select the desired files
  2. Pressing control or shift, click once on the file you will use as pivot (and then release). This will deselect that particular file
  3. Still pressing control or shift, click on the pivot file and drag. All files will move around.

This way, files can also be moved into folders that are present in the desktop, but not into other opened windows.

The problem was that, if you don't do step 2, all the files except the pivot would move around. This smells like a bug to me but could be indeed a (rather experimental if you ask me) feature.

Cheers, Andres

fr_andres
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As said above, the desktop icons are provided by a Gnome shell extension - a crap one, and it's there by default!

Luckily, you can turn it off, and use one that actually works, please see links below in ubuntuhandbook and to the shell extension itself.

https://ubuntuhandbook.org/index.php/2020/10/enable-drag-drop-desktop-ubuntu-20-04/

https://extensions.gnome.org/extension/2087/desktop-icons-ng-ding/

jowan sebastian
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On my 20.04.1 LTS I can do Ctrl-X on a desktop file and Ctrl-V to a folder

rearThing
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