Icons for pictures, detail view for everything else. Easier to sort in the detail view.

The last time I found icon view useful was in Mac OS 9. There were three main characteristics that made it useful that no current systems have AFAIK:

1. The icon grid was tight (32 pixels) and you could either snap items to that grid or place them freely.

2. Window sizes and places were directly associated with folders. (There was no “browser-style” single-window mode.)

3. File names used dynamic spacing. Longer names would occupy multiple grid spaces as needed.

These factors meant that every folder had a consistent and potentially unique size, placment, and layout.

OS X took the Finder and either ruined or neglected everything good about it. Windows explorer has always been garbage. Never found a Linux file manager with a compelling icon view either (though to be fair, I’ve never looked all that hard). The lack of system-level metadata for layout kind of mandates an abstraction between a directory and its display.

Detailed view everywhere except folders with mainly visual media, where I prefer icons.

Detail unless it’s pictures or something where the icon is a preview of the file’s content.

Detailed view all the way

I think it heavily depends on the files one has to browes the most. I deal with text files all the time, so i dont need an icon to jump in my face telling me, that its a text file.

The media-, design people I know love the previews that icons give them, because its much easier to spot the image file, they are looking for while scanning through a directory

I prefer details since it’s easier for me to scan visually, with my eyes only having to go straight down, to find either a name, date, or size. Sorting I also find more intuitive. However, I prefer icon view for my pictures and videos folders

I mostly prefer Detail view, but I enable Icon view in Videos, Photos, and Music folders so I can see previews.

I’m guessing most file managers have similar behavior, but on XFCE Thunar, I’m able to set detail as the default but have it remembery choice per folder.

ls -hal

Terminal.

All jokes aside, its personal preference. If you’re working in a dense file tree, you probably need the info that details view gives you. Icon view really only matter for media.

For some reason, I can’t ever find a view that feels like “list view” from Windows OS. That would be my preference. Detail view is useful in specific conditions—such as troubleshooting or in search results. As is icon view (mostly for images).

When I am not on the terminal, I use list/detail view all the time. In the details most of the time only last modification date is relevant to me. I always make the list icons one step smaller as the default and sort directories before files in Nautilus.

I don’t need thumbnails. When I need to see pictures, I open them with the now new image viewer in Gnome and use the arrow keys to go through, if I am unsure what I am searching for. I most cases I go by file name.

I use Krusader on Linux which I don’t think has icon view.

When I have to use something else (eg Windows Explorer at work), obviously I prefer detailed list view. I like seeing things like the last modified date.

My graphical goto tool is double commander, so lists. In the terminal, it’s either ls -hal, fzf or mc, depending on use case.

I work in a design industry that requires a lot of source files so I end up having to constantly switch. Lists when I’m looking for the relevant folder, or looking for a particular file based on name, or icons if I’m looking for something based on image. There’s no consistent way to switch between them with a keyboard shortcut among different OSs, either.