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submitted 4 months ago by jackalope@lemmy.ml to c/macos@lemmy.world

found a thing that said you could use Gnome Files on Mac using MacPorts. I don't know what MacPorts is but I was able to find some instructions on how to use it with Gnome Files, but it's a bit involved and I don't want to screw up my Mac (not as easy to recover a mac installation as a Linux in my inexperience). Anyone actually done this? Can't find any info about it on Youtube. Would like to see how it actually functions.

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[-] trey_a_12@lemmy.world 1 points 6 days ago

Answering your title question of “is it worth it,” considering that you seemingly either have to compile the app yourself or use an old bloated version with MacPorts, I would probably say “no.” I don’t think the time and difficulty you’d have to potentially go through just to run another file manager when you can’t even truly “replace” Finder is worthwhile.

I’m curious though, what exactly do you want out of Nautilus specifically? You could argue “aesthetic” or something, but that’s just going to look out-of-place on macOS. Unless Nautilus has some hidden superpower somewhere, it’s less functional, too. I could understand Nemo (Cinnamon’s file manager), and I’d definitely consider Dolphin (KDE’s file manager), but Nautilus (to me) has always just been the least powerful file manager with the only advantage being looking native on Adwaita… which wouldn’t even be true if you used it on macOS. Not a criticism, genuine question.

[-] jackalope@lemmy.ml 1 points 6 days ago

There's a lot of features or specific interaction implementation aspects of finder I dislike. For instance, the fact that when you resize the view. Thumbnails don't reflow, or how there is no cut option in the hot keys or right click menu.

[-] trey_a_12@lemmy.world 1 points 6 days ago

I don’t exactly know what you mean about the “when you resize the view. Thumbnails don’t reflow” point, but the Cut option is valid. I use the app Command X which is a must-have at this point. I know it is also possible to make columns autofit to contents somewhere, but you may need an app like Onyx to enable it.

this post was submitted on 21 Mar 2025
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