File manager display preferences

You can control how the file manager displays captions under icons. Click the menu button in the top-right corner of the window and select Preferences, then select the Views tab.

Icon captions

File manager icons with captions

When you use icon view, you can choose to have extra information about files and folders displayed in a caption under each icon. This is useful, for example, if you often need to see who owns a file or when it was last modified.

You can zoom in a folder by clicking the view options button in the toolbar and choosing a zoom level with the slider. As you zoom in, the file manager will display more and more information in captions. You can choose up to three things to show in captions. The first will be displayed at most zoom levels. The last will only be shown at very large sizes.

The information you can show in icon captions is the same as the columns you can use in list view. See Files list columns preferences for more information.

List View

When viewing files as a list, you can Allow folders to be expanded. This shows expanders on each directory in the file list, so that the contents of several folders can be shown at once. This is useful if the folder structure is relevant, such as if your music files are organized with a folder per artist, and a subfolder per album.