Small and highly customizable twin-panel file manager for Linux with support for plugins.

Note: Prefered repository hosting is GitLab. If you don't have an account there and don't wish to make one interacting with one on GitHub is fine.

Sunflower

Sunflower is a small and highly customizable twin-panel file manager for Linux with support for plugins. It is intended to be an easy-to-use and powerful file manager that seamlessly integrates into the GNOME desktop environment (but not limited to). Fully compatible and native to Wayland compositors.

Packages

Sunflower package can be downloaded from following locations:

Arch Linux AUR
Ubuntu PPA (usually late by a version or two)
Gentoo Installation: emerge --ask x11-misc/sunflower

Official packages can be downloaded from here or releases page above.

Plugins

Check some of the plugins made by community:

Plugins can be installed locally to: ~/.config/sunflower/user_plugins/<plugin_name>

How to contribute

You can be a part of this project in many ways. We suggest posting on our mailing list or visiting our IRC channel #sunflower on Libera chat and we'll try to help you get started.

And as usual testers are more than welcome. If you wish to help translate program to your language please join translation team(s) on Transifex.

Staying in touch

Preferred way of getting in touch with us is through mailing list.

I like talking to people a lot so please feel free to contact me any time. You can always follow me on my twitter account and Reddit. We also have IRC channel, #sunflower on libera.chat.

Screenshots

Check out screenshots.

Please note that screen shots and videos are months old, but they will help you know a little bit more what you are getting with this program.

Sunflower doesn't start in archlinux,

user@pc ~]$ sunflower 
Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "/usr/lib/python3.10/site-packages/sunflower/__main__.py", line 165, in do_activate
    self.window = MainWindow(
  File "/usr/lib/python3.10/site-packages/sunflower/gui/main_window.py", line 87, in __init__
    self._load_styles()
  File "/usr/lib/python3.10/site-packages/sunflower/gui/main_window.py", line 931, in _load_styles
    provider.load_from_file(Gio.File.new_for_path(file_name))
gi.repository.GLib.GError: gtk-css-provider-error-quark: <broken file>:1:0Failed to import: Error opening file /usr/lib/python3.10/site-packages/styles/main.css: No such file or directory (2)

Installed package from https://aur.archlinux.org/packages/sunflower

An updated Fedora 35 runs Python 3.10, but the Sunflower RPM installs the module specifically to /usr/lib/python3.9/site-packages.

Actual behavior:

When launched from the GUI, the application never appears.
When launched from a fresh Terminal session, the following error appears:

$ sunflower 
Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "/usr/local/bin/sunflower", line 4, in <module>
    runpy.run_module('sunflower', run_name='__main__', alter_sys=True)
  File "/usr/lib64/python3.10/runpy.py", line 205, in run_module
    mod_name, mod_spec, code = _get_module_details(mod_name)
  File "/usr/lib64/python3.10/runpy.py", line 140, in _get_module_details
    raise error("No module named %s" % mod_name)
ImportError: No module named sunflower

The following workaround is confirmed to work: sudo ln -s /usr/lib/python3.9/site-packages/sunflower /usr/lib/python3.10/site-packages/

Expected behavior:

The rpm may have to have scripting or a separate package for different Python versions.

Found a bug in Sunflower which might cause operation to happen on unfocused panel. It seems to occur when workspaces are changed in Gnome. I suggest enabling delete to trash in case you remove files you are not suppose to.

bug critical

Using version 0.5.63-1, installed from AUR. Unlike the 0.4 series, I'm happy that it is now able to mount/open my NAS location, and the mount manager is now working/available. Thanks for that.

However, when I tried to copy a few files (2 or 3) from my hard drive to the NAS drive (into a specific folder), it gave me an error:

Gio.File.create() takes exactly 3 arguments (1 given)

To test, I then tried to copy the same files to NAS using Nautilus, using the same ftp address for my NAS. It worked. So it can't be a problem with permissions. Would appreciate you looking into this.

ksnip_20220322-203343 .

bug

Bug:

In Preferences → Item List, check Load specified tabs instead of saved.
Add two directories — let’s say /usr and /etc — and check Left list for one and Right list for the other.
Save preferences and restart Sunflower.

I expect Sunflower to start with /usr in one notebook and /etc in the other. Instead, it starts with the home directory in both.

As far as I can tell from the source code, Sunflower saves that directory list but doesn’t use it anywhere.

(For me personally, it’s more convenient to specify initial directories on the command line. I stumbled upon this bug only because I didn’t know I could pass directories on the command line, and was looking for another way.)

Another long time coming release. Further work on improving GTK3 port has been done. Many interfaces have been remade to look better and more consistent with the rest of the system. Popup menu for items have been completely redesigned with new emblems mechanism in place.

This version also fixed numerous issues with distribution specific packages, most notably RPM.

Source code(tar.gz)
Source code(zip)
sunflower-0.5.63-1.all.deb(500.28 KB)
sunflower-0.5.63-1.noarch.centos8.rpm(860.89 KB)
sunflower-0.5.63-1.noarch.fedora.rpm(829.32 KB)
sunflower-0.5.63-standalone.zip(473.99 KB)

After many years of development and many troubles version 0.4 is finally here.

This version brings new interface based on GTK3. We've switched to Python3 for easier future development. Interface changes and code rewrites resulted in big performance gain.

There are many issues with this new version, most obvious ones being related to keyboard shortcuts, but I didn't wish to spend more months and keep people in the dark. Should you run into new issues, please report them here on GitHub or GitLab.

This version also brings standalone executable. File provided for download here (ending with .standalone.zip) can be downloaded and just marked as executable by entering chmod +x sunflower-0.4.62.standalone.zip. Some dependencies might need to be installed for it to work but on most Gnome desktop environments it should work just fine. This version is ideal for trying Sunflower out as it doesn't require any installation.

Please test and let me know if you run into any issues or have any comments on interface changes and similar.

Source code(tar.gz)
Source code(zip)
sunflower-0.4-62.tgz(738.76 KB)
sunflower-0.4.62-2.all.deb(414.71 KB)
sunflower-0.4.62-2.noarch.rpm(434.92 KB)
sunflower-0.4.62.standalone.zip(464.56 KB)

Here's a hotfix release. This version fixes issue people were having with removing files when confirmation dialog is disabled.

Source code(tar.gz)
Source code(zip)

After long wait, it's finally here. There were many changes under the hood, some new features, lot's of bug fixes. This is also the last GTK2 release. If there's a higher demand, I might maintain separate branch for GTK2, but we'll see.

So here's the change log:

Ability to find text inside remote directories.
Add MTP, Gphoto2 and GIO Provider to handle Android phones and other multimedia devices.
Add context menu items to copy path or file name of selected item.
Add option to support second level extension.
Add support for GVFS archive mounts.
Added 'skip all' option to operation dialogs.
Added keyboard shortcuts for menus.
Added ability to lock session.
Added option to avoid following symlinks in operations.
Added support for calculating directory usage.
Added viewer word wrap option.
Check collisions on changed accelerators.
Custom dialog for confirming removal.
Enabled mnemonics in bookmark list.
Hide files listed in .hidden file.
Initial archive support.
Initial support for trash.
List of paths to be treated as always visible.
Main window: Add %P,%M and %U variables in commands.
Make viewer try to detect character encoding of file in order to better handle none ASCII/UTF-8 cases.
Operation queue implemented.
Option to turn on network path completion.
Properly handle system signals.
Properly support symbolic links.
Set 'sunflower' as process name if setproctitle module available.
Single instance support through DBus and fnctl.
Support for horizontal split.
Support for multiple patterns when matching items in find files tool.
Support for saving previously used patterns in find files tool.
Support link emblems though emblem manager.
Switched to GitHub API for version check.
Show extensions tabs first in viewer.
Set buffer size from system block size to improve performance in operations.
Selecting "open file list" will open current terminal path instead of initial.
Select first item when selected item is parent directory.
Scroll to item after applying sort function.
Improved path entry dialog.
Fixed some issues with making hard links.
Fixed setting emblems on expanded directories.
Fixed issues with overwriting files in multiple rename tool.
Fix issues with threads on some systems.
Fix issues with opening files and setting current working directory.
Changed the way application imports plugins.
Change operations to work with expanded directories.
Always show tree expanders when option is turned on.