How to be granted root rights while browsing files/directories with Nautilus
I'd like to know if there a way to be granted root rights while using Nautilus 2.30 ?
For example I'd like to move some old folders of long unused users from the home directory - remains of previous distros (Debian).
Of course I can open a terminal, but I want to know if it is possible to do that with a mouse in Nautilus.
For Ubuntu <= 10.10 , 10.04
nautilus-gksu
Is an extension that grants root privileges using gksu nautilus.
It enables an option when you right-click on a file (also directories and other...) in nautilus: "Open as administrator".
After installing it restart Nautilus (killall nautilus
) and it will have the new feature.
Ubuntu 11.04 and 11.10,
install nautilus-gksu
and copy and paste the libnautilus-gksu.so
file from /usr/lib/nautilus/extensions-2.0/
to /usr/lib/nautilus/extensions-3.0/
Ubuntu 12.04 & 12.10:
The nautilus-gksu
package has been dropped in Ubuntu 12.04 and 12.10 since gksu
2.0.2-6ubuntu1 release, so you can not install it easily. Here I’m going to use a nautilus script to add Open As Administrator functionality.
First download the libnautilus-gksu.so
file:
Click to Download libnautilus-gksu.so
Then, run gksudo nautilus in terminal Ctrl+Alt+T to open the file browser with root privilege, copy and paste this file to /usr/lib/nautilus/extensions-3.0/
. Or do it with this command:
sudo cp ~/Downloads/libnautilus-gksu.so /usr/lib/nautilus/extensions-3.0/
Log out and back in, or run this command to take effect:
nautilus -q
Source
If all you need is mouse, I'd try opening a terminal and then:
$gksudo nautilus
I don't see the need to install anything
edit: this was covered here
Ubuntu 12.04 and later
Nautilus Admin (nautilus-admin) is a simple Python extension for the Nautilus file manager that adds some administrative actions to the right-click menu:
- Open as Administrator: opens a folder in a new Nautilus window running with administrator (root) privileges.
- Edit as Administrator: opens a file in a Gedit window running with administrator (root) privileges.
To install Nautilus Admin in all currently supported versions of Ubuntu open the terminal and type:
sudo apt install nautilus-admin
gksu
is discontinued in the official 18.04 and later repositories.
Alternatively open the directory in nautilus as root from the terminal with a command of the form:
sudo -H nautilus /path/to/directory
Ubuntu 16.04 and earlier
gksudo is a frontend to sudo. Its primary purpose is to run graphical programs as root.
Open the terminal and type:
sudo apt-get install gksu # install gksu if it is not already installed
gksudo nautilus
Enter your password in the window that pops up.