show thumbnails in file chooser dialog

Question

is there any way to show thumbnails in file chooser dialog in ubuntu or in any other distro ?

Answer 1

You are hitting a sensitive issue: the infamous GTK file picker bug. It was opened in 2004, and has been closed in 2018 to be moved to the new Gnome GitLab bugtracking platform. There, the bug happily lives on up to this day.

is there any way to show thumbnails in file chooser dialog in ubuntu or in any other distro ?

Yes, for sure...

...however not on a GTK based desktop. Users of a QT based desktop such as KDE Plasma have more luck: Their file picker has a well functioning thumbnail view.

Answer 2

Looks like this 18 year old bug will finally be dying soon: https://www.reddit.com/r/linux/comments/yab9ux/gtk_file_picker_meme_is_finally_dead_after_18/

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h2z-v3v6vwk

https://wiki.installgentoo.com/wiki/File_Picker_meme

In late April, 2004, a bug was submitted to GNOME's bugzilla[1], suggesting a feature to add to the GtkFileChooser, the main tool for picking files (to upload, open, etc.) within a Gnome Desktop a thumbnail view similar to that found on Windows.

Can't wait to see this released.