{"id":955,"date":"2024-07-20T00:12:39","date_gmt":"2024-07-20T00:12:39","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/serverhost.com\/blog\/quick-tip-displaying-ebook-thumbnails-in-nautilus-file-manager\/"},"modified":"2025-02-11T06:05:27","modified_gmt":"2025-02-11T06:05:27","slug":"quick-tip-displaying-ebook-thumbnails-in-nautilus-file-manager","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/serverhost.com\/blog\/quick-tip-displaying-ebook-thumbnails-in-nautilus-file-manager\/","title":{"rendered":"Quick Tip: Displaying eBook Thumbnails in Nautilus File Manager"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><p><strong>I recently rediscovered my Amazon Kindle (a geriatric model from 2012, nothing fancy) and figured, as it still works, I\u2019ll use it, and set about downloading freely available EPUBs of classic (and not-so-classic \u2013 I\u2019m a pulpy-kinda guy) literature.<\/strong><\/p>\n<\/p>\n<blockquote>\n<p>They say never judge a book by its cover \u2013 but it is useful to be able to distinguish a book by its cover!<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p><p>Thing is: my old Amazon Kindle can\u2019t open EPUB files<sup><a href=\"#7645d93c-bde5-429a-bc21-98b70b78b3b2\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">1<\/a><\/sup> so I have to use the <a href=\"https:\/\/calibre-ebook.com\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">open-source eBook tool <em>Calibre<\/em><\/a> to convert them into the AZW3 format my ancient Kindle prefers, or the MOBI format which it does support.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n<p><p>As a result, my <em>Downloads<\/em> folder has filled up with EPUB <em>and<\/em> MOBI files.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n<p><p>But each respective file uses a generic file-type icon from Ubuntu\u2019s <em>Yaru<\/em> theme, making it harder to tell which book is which when I go to drag n\u2019 drop them to my Kindle (connected via USB and mounted).<\/p>\n<\/p>\n<p><p>They say never judge a book by its cover, but it is useful to be able to <em>distinguish<\/em> a book by its cover.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n<p><p>And then in a coincidental twist <em>\u2014*twilight zone music*\u2014<\/em> reader <em>Flimm<\/em> sent in an eerily well-timed tip on how to see EPUB thumbnails in Ubuntu\u2019s file manager, <em>Nautilus<\/em>\u2026<\/p>\n<\/p>\n<p><h2>GNOME EPUB Thumbnailer to the Rescue<\/h2>\n<\/p>\n<p><p>GNOME maintain the <code>gnome-epub-thumbnailer<\/code> package. This small, optional add-on will render eBook thumbnails (using book cover art, or a thumbnail of the first page) in the <em>Nautilus<\/em> file manager, for both EPUB and MOBI files.<\/p>\n<p>Which is sweet!<\/p>\n<p>Just like how JPG, PNG, GIF, and other files show thumbnails, or MP3 files with embedded album art show that, or an MP4 shows a frame excerpt, etc.<\/p>\n<p>Better yet, installing the <a href=\"https:\/\/gitlab.gnome.org\/GNOME\/gnome-epub-thumbnailer\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">GNOME ePub thumbnailer<\/a> on Ubuntu is easy since it\u2019s available in the repositories: \u2013<\/p>\n<\/p>\n<p><pre>sudo apt install gnome-epub-thumbnailer<\/pre>\n<\/p>\n<p><p>After installing, <em>Nautilus<\/em> will automatically generate thumbnails for EPUB and MOBI files the next time the view refreshes (i.e., press <kbd>F5<\/kbd> in an existing view, or enter a folder with relevant files in, etc). <\/p>\n<\/p>\n<p><p>That said, you may find you have to quit and re-open <em>Nautilus<\/em> (use the <code>nautilus -q<\/code> command if you don\u2019t fancy logging out) to get it working.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n<p><p>Once set up, you\u2019ll get to enjoy a visually-rich overview of your ebook files in the <em>Nautilus<\/em> file manager \u2013 as you can see in the hero image at the top of this article \u2013 e-bookworms rejoice! <\/p>\n<\/p>\n<p><p><em>thanks Flimm<\/em><\/p>\n<\/p>\n<ol>\n<li>EPUB is supported in newer Amazon Kindle models out-of-the-box <a href=\"#7645d93c-bde5-429a-bc21-98b70b78b3b2-link\" aria-label=\"Jump to footnote reference 1\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">\u21a9\ufe0e<\/a><\/li>\n<\/ol>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>I recently rediscovered my Amazon Kindle (a geriatric model from 2012, nothing fancy) and figured, as it still works, I\u2019ll use it, and set about downloading freely available EPUBs of classic (and not-so-classic \u2013 I\u2019m a pulpy-kinda guy) literature. They say never judge a book by its cover \u2013 but it is useful to be [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":956,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[41,574,109,31,143,575],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-955","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-calibre","category-ebook","category-ebooks","category-epub","category-how-to","category-kindle"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v24.5 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Quick Tip: Displaying eBook Thumbnails in Nautilus serverhost<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Learn how to enable ebook thumbnails in Nautilus File Manager, making it easier to preview and manage your ebook collection in the GNOME desktop environment on Linux.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, 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