Install & Use GNOME Sushi to Quickly Preview Files in Ubuntu 22.04

Looking for ways to get quick look at your files in Ubuntu, Fedora, or other Linux with GNOME? Try Sushi file previewer!

It’s a free open-source project present more than 10 years. I’ve almost forgotten about it, until I saw that Ubuntu desktop team proposed to install Sushi by default in 23.04 release

GNOME Sushi runs as a DBus-activated service. With it, user may hit Space Bar on keyboard to quick preview selected file in a pop-up window. And, hit the Space Bar again will close it.

It supports previewing photo images, audio, video, plain documents, PDF, XML, and SVG files.

I did remember it also preview selected folder with the basic information, including total size, contained items, modified time etc. However, it does not work in my case in Ubuntu 22.04 may be due to GTK4 port.

Sushi can be efficient when you have a large list of files to preview. Just hit Space-bar to open preview window, use arrow keys (←, →) allow to quickly preview next or previous files.

How to Install GNOME Sushi

Firstly, open terminal either by searching from ‘Activities‘ overview screen or by pressing Ctrl + Alt + T on keyboard.

When terminal opens, run the command below to install it:

sudo apt install gnome-sushi

Fedora user may run sudo dnf install sushi command to get the package

After installation, it should run silently at background. Just open ‘Files’ (aka Nautilus file manager), highlight your file and hit Space bar to try out!

Ji m

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I'm a freelance blogger who started using Ubuntu in 2007 and wishes to share my experiences and some useful tips with Ubuntu beginners and lovers. Please comment to let me know if the tutorial is outdated! And, notify me if you find any typo/grammar/language mistakes. English is not my native language. Contact me via [email protected] Buy me a coffee: https://ko-fi.com/ubuntuhandbook1 |

5 responses to Install & Use GNOME Sushi to Quickly Preview Files in Ubuntu 22.04

Michael Coyle July 9, 2022 at 4:24 pm

Any way to get this to work with Nemo?

Reply
- Ji m July 10, 2022 at 2:16 pm
  Nemo file manager has similar function via “nemo-preview”. It should be there out-of-box in Linux Mint 20. If not, try installing it via:
  
  sudo apt install nemo-preview
  Reply
  - MIchael Coyle July 10, 2022 at 9:15 pm
    
    Thanks and you are correct, nemo-preview is what I need, but I’m having trouble finding a version that works under Ubuntu 21.04. If I find one, I’ll stop back to post here.
    
    Reply
    - Jan August 16, 2022 at 4:36 pm
      
      I have the same problem with nemo-preview on Ubuntu 22.04.
      Searched all the little rest of the “open” net which Google allows us to see and found nothing that helped making nemo-preview work…
      
      If someone could help i am thankful for a short tip! ;-)
      
      Reply
      - Jan August 16, 2022 at 4:49 pm
        
        got it working with this guide:
        
        https://ubuntu-mate.community/t/for-nemo-users-how-to-install-nemo-preview-broken-help/6116