Tools · Local App

Nemo Tune

Tune the Nemo file manager from one window: path bar shapes and colours, the terminal prompt, any number of panes, and space bars and folder statistics in the sidebar. One settings file you can export and import.

⬇ Download nemotune.tar.gz Install steps

What you can tune

Path bar

Crumb shape (square, rounded, pill, tab, leaf), border, gap, and for the unselected crumbs and the selected one separately: font, text colour, background colour and height. Applied live.

no restart

Terminal

The prompt of the terminal inside Nemo (or of every terminal): plain or powerline blocks, colours, folder style, git branch, exit code. Copy and paste keys that follow your system terminal.

bash + zsh

Panes

As many panes as you want, side by side. Plain F3 adds one, F4 deletes the selected one, F5 and F6 move it left and right. All four keys are yours to change.

default max 6

Sidebar

A used-space bar on every mounted device, [size, files, folders] after each folder, and folders you cannot write to in their own colour. In the Tree view and the Places view.

colour-blind presets

One settings window, one file

Everything is edited in a single window (nemotune) and saved as one text file, ~/.config/nemotune/nemotune.ini. Changes apply as you make them. Export and Import copy all your settings to another machine; Import keeps a backup of what it replaces. The same from a script: nemotune list | get | set | reset | export | import.

The read-only folder colour has presets for protanopia, deuteranopia, tritanopia and no colour vision at all, and it is always paired with italic and an optional underline or lock, so the cue never depends on colour alone.

Install

tar -xzf nemotune.tar.gz
cd nemotune
sh nemotune-install.sh

That installs the nemotune settings tool and its man page into ~/.local — no root, nothing system-wide. The path bar, panes and sidebar features need a patched Nemo, which is built on your machine:

sh nemotune-install.sh --with-nemo

It checks the build packages, offers to install the missing ones with your package manager (this is the only step that uses sudo, and it asks first), downloads Nemo 6.6.3 from GitHub, applies the patch, builds it into ~/.local/opt/nemotune, and then asks whether to make it your default file manager. Say no and nothing changes until you run nemotune enable. nemotune disable and nemotune uninstall undo everything and keep your settings.

First run

nemotune                # the settings window
nemotune status         # what is installed, enabled and running
nemotune enable         # use the tuned Nemo for every folder, then:  nemo -q
nemotune prompt-install # only if you want the terminal prompt

Notes

Linux Mint with Nemo 6.6.3. The patch is made for that exact version. Other distributions and other Nemo versions are not supported yet.
The settings tool is one prebuilt program for 64-bit Intel/AMD processors, with its source and build script in the tarball (Free Pascal, GTK 3 bound at run time). No Python.
The program itself makes no network calls. The only downloads are the Nemo source (--with-nemo) and, if you ask for it, the MesloLGS NF font for the powerline prompt; both ask first.
Nothing is installed system-wide, and nothing in your shell files changes except the PATH and MANPATH lines the installer adds, plus a three-line block if you choose prompt-install (it keeps a backup).
This changes how Nemo looks and behaves; it is a personal tool that got tidied up, not an official part of Nemo or Cinnamon.