Strange folders in ~/.thumbnails

[vasa1]

I see ~/.thumbnails/large/00000000000000000000000000000000.png/ and ~/.thumbnails/normal/00000000000000000000000000000000.png/ in Lubuntu 13.04. Both folders have been empty whenever I looked. Under what conditions would these folders be populated. What is their purpose?

You can see these folders in this video as well: Lubuntu Screencast: Showing size of folders with du and ncdu at around 1 min 38 sec into the video.

[Rex Bouwense]

I just checked on my system (Lubuntu 13.04) and I also have those two files. However, the ~/.thumbnails/normal/00000000000000000000000000000000.png/ is populated with thumbnails of my documents. The other is not populated. Just thought that I would add my two cents.

[vasa1]

I just checked on my system (Lubuntu 13.04) and I also have those two files. However, the ~/.thumbnails/normal/00000000000000000000000000000000.png/ is populated with thumbnails of my documents. The other is not populated. Just thought that I would add my two cents.

Rex, thanks for responding. I was beginning to think that these 0*.png folders were some sort of artifact.

[Rex Bouwense]

No I don't think that. It appears that they are merely a file for your thumbnails. Since I don't use large ones that file is empty. The question then becomes, since I do not use thumbnails to view my files and documents but rather the detailed list view, how did they get there? This might be one of those questions that some people pose that has no answer. Anyway, glad that you are still out there after our three day server problem. Keep plugging.

[vasa1]

No I don't think that. It appears that they are merely a file for your thumbnails. Since I don't use large ones that file is empty. The question then becomes, since I do not use thumbnails to view my files and documents but rather the detailed list view, how did they get there? This might be one of those questions that some people pose that has no answer. Anyway, glad that you are still out there after our three day server problem. Keep plugging.

Rex, I don't know how much time you have to think about this. But I've thought about it for a while without getting anywhere!
I can understand having two subfolders, large and normal. But why then have these further two really oddly named subfolders. What determines whether a thumbnail stays in ~/.thumbnails/normal or in ~/.thumbnails/normal/00000000000000000000000000000000.png?

Can you see any method in what criteria decide when files are placed in the latter location? I can't help because as long as I used PCManFM, I had the "00000000000000000000000000000000.png" in both normal and large but both were always empty.

If I set Thunar as the file manager I just have normal and large with no further subfolders. The "00000000000000000000000000000000.png" subfolders (in both large and normal) are created by PCManFM. But why?

[Rex Bouwense]

You got me to thinking now and I'm not sure if all this thinking is going to do us any good. There is no bug report on the Source Forge website that relates to this issue. It may just be a hold over from previous editions. Then the question arises why is one of my files populated by 430 thumbnails. I did not look at all of them but the ones that I did look at were thumbnails of documents that I have stored on the computer. I do not remember doing anything that would cause the system to remember and store them in such a cache. I have not had a single problem with PCManFM since I first moved to an lxde system (that was Lubuntu 11.04 I think). So, as of now I am at a loss for another response. Sorry my friend. Perhaps some one else on this forum has the answer to the question.

Update: I have Lubuntu 12.04 and 12.10 also installed so I checked the files on each system. On 12.04, which uses
PCManFM 0.9.10, neither file was populated. On 12.10, which uses PCManFM 1.0.1, only the normal file was populated by well over 5,000 thumbnails. Of course 13.04 uses PCManFM 1.1.0. More confusing since I used all of the systems since they were released.

[vasa1]

@Rex, it's obviously not a big deal. PCManFm's functioning isn't impaired in any way. It's just one of those why is "so-and-so" called "this" and not "that"

[seppalta]

The file manager (pcmanfm thunar, ...) stores the thumbnail files for each folder in the hidden .thumbnails directory in your Home Folder. You can control the days these thumbnails are stored by installing the latest dconf-tools from Debian packages (http://packages.debian.org/ru/jessie/dconf-tools for Jessie). This should work for any Debian based distro.

Open dconf-editor, and navigate org>gnome>desktop>thumbnail-cache. There, change max-age to the number of days you want thumbnails saved.

[Rex Bouwense]

The file manager (pcmanfm thunar, ...) stores the thumbnail files for each folder in the hidden .thumbnails directory in your Home Folder.

We both know where they are. The question, for which I have no answer, is why are some of the files populated and others not. However, like vasa 1 said, it is really no big thing. Glad to see you back on line. Your knowledge has been missed although the site was down for 3 or 4 days.

[LStranger]

Those folders are used by thumbnail generation program. Feel free to remove them, they will be recreated next time thumbnail generation is required. Nothing to worry about.