KDE mascot Konqi for search and archives

Dolphin is a

free and open source Free and open-source software (FOSS) is software available under a license that grants users the right to use, modify, and distribute the software modified or not to everyone free of charge. FOSS is an inclusive umbrella term encompassing free ...

file manager A file manager or file browser is a computer program that provides a user interface to manage computer files, files and folder (computing), folders. The most common Computer file#Operations, operations performed on files or groups of files incl ...

included in the

KDE Applications The KDE Gear is a set of applications and supporting libraries that are developed by the KDE community, primarily used on Linux-based operating systems but mostly multiplatform, and released on a common release schedule. The bundle is compos ...

bundle. Dolphin became the default file manager of the

KDE Plasma KDE Plasma is a Shell (computing), graphical shell developed by the KDE community for Unix-like operating systems. It serves as the interface layer between the user and the operating system, providing a graphical user interface (GUI) and workspa ...

desktop environments in the fourth iteration, termed

KDE Software Compilation 4 KDE Software Compilation 4 (KDE SC 4) was the only series of the so-called KDE Software Compilation (KDE SC), first released in January 2008. The final release was version 4.14.3 in November 2014. It was the follow-up to K Desktop Environment 3 ...

. It can also be optionally installed on K Desktop Environment 3. It replaces

Konqueror Konqueror is a Free and open-source software, free and open-source web browser and file manager that provides World Wide Web, web access and file viewer, file-viewer functionality for file systems (such as local files, files on a remote FTP ser ...

as the default file manager for KDE SC 4, but Konqueror can still be used as an alternative file manager.

History

Under previous K Desktop Environment versions, Konqueror had served both as the default file manager and web browser. However, for many years users had been critical of Konqueror as being too complex for simple file navigation. As a response, the two functions were divided into two separate applications. Under KDE SC 4, Dolphin was streamlined for browsing files, while sharing as much code as possible with Konqueror. Konqueror continues to be developed primarily as a web browser. In 2014, work started on porting Dolphin to KDE Frameworks 5. A Frameworks 5-based version was released as part of KDE Applications 15.08 in August 2015. It was ported to Qt 6 and this version was released as a part of KDE Plasma 6 on 28 February 2024.

Dolphin and K Desktop Environment 3

As development of the KDE SC 4 version was underway, the K Desktop Environment 3 version of Dolphin was discontinued. However, the program continues to be unofficially available for K Desktop Environment 3 under the slightly modified name of “D3lphin”. D3lphin contains many bugfixes and a new sidebar and is maintained by the TDE project.

Features

Breadcrumb Breadcrumbs are a culinary ingredient consisting of flour or crumbled bread of varying dryness, sometimes with seasonings added. They are used for a variety of purposes, including breading or crumbing foods before frying (such as breaded cutlet ...

navigation bar – each part of the URL is clickable * 3 view modes (Icons, Details and Compact), remembered for each folder (configurable) * File Previews * Split views (for copying and moving files) * Network transparency – using KDE’s

KIO KIO (KDE Input/Output) is a system library incorporated into KDE Frameworks and KDE Software Compilation 4. It provides access to files, web sites and other resources through a single consistent API. Applications, such as Konqueror and Dolph ...

slaves * Undo/Redo functionality * Tabbed navigation * Renaming of a variable number of selected items in one step * Baloo (file indexer) integration, which includes ** File search ** Tagging, rating and commenting files * Places bar which also integrates with the Kickoff launcher menu's “Computer” tab * Sorting and grouping of files by name, size, type and others

Networking

* Dolphin supports various network protocols (e.g.,

FTP The File Transfer Protocol (FTP) is a standard communication protocol used for the transfer of computer files from a server to a client on a computer network. FTP is built on a client–server model architecture using separate control and dat ...

, SFTP, SMB) for accessing files on remote servers or

network-attached storage Network-attached storage (NAS) is a file-level computer data storage server connected to a computer network providing data access to a Heterogeneous computing, heterogeneous group of clients. In this context, the term "NAS" can refer to both th ...

(NAS) devices.

Gallery

File:Dolphin 19.04 Kvantum Theme.png, Dolphin 19.04 with modified theme. Panels are displaced from their default position. File:Dolphin 19.04 Kvantum Theme 2 Split Mode.png , Dolphin 19.04 in split Mode.

References

External links

*
The Dolphin Handbook

Dolphin user wiki

Binary downloads for Windows
{{KDE Applications using D-Bus Free file managers KDE Applications File managers