I’m in the process of switching my machines to Linux Mint from Windows and on my network drive I have a bunch of folders that are sorted with the help of preceding underscores (like this “__folder1” “___folder2”)) so that folders appear in a specific order.

When my Mint machines access the drive they sort by the first letter skipping the underscores and I’d really like to have that functionality back rather than having to rename a bunch of folders to try to sort them again. (I’d like to avoid a preceding ‘A’ workaround if possible as there’s a bunch of folders)

Any suggestions? A setting I’m missing (very likely) or something?

Edit: The more I look the more it looks like I’m going to have to make a custom locale to be able to get the sorting I want from the default Mint file manager.

  • GormadtOP
    2•6 months ago

    The default file manager on Mint in Nemo

    But I’ll do some more trawling in the settings and look into a new file manager if I can’t find a setting for it

      • GormadtOP
        3•6 months ago

        It’s kinda worked

        Now the underscores appear between uppercase names and lowercase names

        So it’s a step in the right direction for me for sure now that they’re at least bunched together

        • @s38b35M5English
          2•6 months ago

          Not a fix, but a workaround I use when symbols and punctuation are treated this way: I use lowercase letters to precede folder names to get the sort I want.

          aFolder1
          bFolder2

          Not elegant, but it works in your case. You could also try other file managers, like Thunar to see if they manage sorting differently

          • GormadtOP
            2•6 months ago

            Honestly I think I’m just going to have to go through and rename the folders as faffing about with locales isn’t my idea of fun lol

            I was going to install Dolphin file manager (which has a sort option that does it the way Windows does) until I saw a known bug of “sometimes crashes without error and just loses the files you were moving” which is an absolute deal breaker for me. I do photography as one of my hobbies and I’d lose my shit if I lost the pictures I took in the process of making backups.

            • @s38b35M5English
              2•6 months ago

              Yeah, that sounds like a better long-term solution for you. Once you change your workflow, you shouldn’t have to do it again anyway!

              • GormadtOP
                1•6 months ago

                Plus I wouldn’t have to worry about the issue again on other distros

                It’s just going to really really suck renaming all those folders

                • @s38b35M5English
                  2•6 months ago

                  If you dare, you can automated it with some simple scripting. If I had more than 20 or 30, I’d probably go that route.

                  • GormadtOP
                    2•6 months ago

                    There’s definitely more than that lol

                    Any tips on where to start in that regard?

                    I heard that Nemo (the default file manager for Linux Mint) has bulk rename abilities baked in but that’s all I’ve heard about that