Opening Dolphinm with the same tabs every time, twice the same

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1

Hi

I would like Dolphin to always start with the same Tabs. To do this, I found that I can simply add the paths of folders, separated by to make a new Dolphin always open the same tabs.

My problem is, I want to open the same folder twice, and Dolphin seem to check for this and prevents it from happening.

Is there a way to open the two identical tabs in the same Dolphin by adding a command line argument?

In short:
dolphin /mnt/nas /mnt/nas /home/me/Desktop /mnt/nas

This opens Dolphin, but with only two tabs, nas and Desktop instead of four.

Why would you even check for this?

Regards.

2

What you are seeing is not a shell limitation but Dolphin’s own tab/location handling behavior.

Dolphin appears to consolidate identical locations within the same window/session instead of opening multiple tabs for the same directory. So in your example:

dolphin /mnt/nas /mnt/nas /home/me/Desktop /mnt/nas

the repeated /mnt/nas arguments are effectively treated as a single location.

Based on KDE discussions and bug reports, this appears to be intentional behavior rather than a parsing bug. Dolphin tends to reuse or focus existing locations instead of creating duplicate tabs for identical paths.

Current Dolphin versions also do not appear to expose a command-line option that forces duplicate tabs for the same directory.

So your command itself is valid; the limitation is inside Dolphin’s tab/session management design.

3

OP wasn’t claiming it was a shell limitation. They said that “Dolphin seem to check for this and prevents it from happening.”

Could you cite the relevant discussions and bug reports please?

4 
krusader --left="/home/me/Desktop" --right="/mnt/nas","/mnt/nas","/mnt/nas"

:wink:

5

The was and is nothing wrong with @MarcelStevano post. @ben2talk why even suggest adding another file manager? Rather Windows, OSX, Linux the idea is to stick to one file manager. Not to have to learn multiple file managers.

6

The point I was making is that Dolphin is not simply opening every path argument as an independent tab.

There is existing KDE discussion around Dolphin reusing or activating locations that are already open rather than creating duplicate tabs for identical locations.

Relevant references:

In particular, bug 183429 explicitly describes this behaviour:

“If any of the given URIs are already open in a tab, then those tabs are activated instead of a new tab being opened.”

That is the behaviour I was referring to. The command itself is valid. The question is how Dolphin handles repeated locations after receiving those arguments.

7

i would be willing to bet that if you go back far enough in file manager UX discussions, you will find someone complaining about “why does it keep opening all these new tabs/windows? why can’t it just switch me to my already open tab/window to avoid all the clutter”

and everyone nodded their head and agreed that that it should.

there was probably on lone voice asking the “but what if i want more than one tab/window open of the same folder?”

and everyone said “why would you want that? nobody would want that.”

and here we are, the cycle is complete.

8

Let me try to spell this out for you…

  1. OP wants to open duplicate tabs of the same path. Dolphin simply cannot do this. Period. No amount of ‘sticking to one file manager’ will change that unless you persuade developers to include an option to override or change the behaviour.

  2. I didn’t suggest krusader as a Dolphin workaround, I suggested it as a solution to the OP’s need which is to open mulitple views of the same directory simultaneously which is handled natively in Krusader.

  3. Your ‘stick to one file manager’ mantra is arbritrary gatekeeping, not sensible advice. I often use ls and cd and zoxide with fzf - also I have icd and have used mc, ranger, thunar, and currently am in love with yazi.

Your advice is that doing so is wrong, because I had to ‘learn’ something new…

  1. Solutions available:
  • Accept that you can’t do this
  • Find a different tool that does what you need
  • Patch dolphin yourself or request Developers include an option.

Dolphin won’t open THE SAME location in more than one tab… to suggest that it should isn’t too fruitful unless we really establish a good reason and use-case that overrides the benefit of the current behaviour.

My suggestion would likely satisfy the OP’s NEED (not the ‘Dolphin issue’).

Different tools often have different strengths… I actually frequently (when using Dolphin) hit F4 and fire up Yazi alongside Dolphin… Your rule says that this is wrong.

You don’t ‘have to learn’ if you don’t want to - your choice. Similarly, attempting to apply some level of ingenuity to work around an issue is also quite normal and acceptable behaviour for folks seeking a solution.

But obviously, with my preference for applying ingenious solutions using existing tools, not just limiting myself to a single brick wall - you’d better just shoot me now :wink: