Nautilus: 'E-mail this file' option in right-click/context menu

This should work for all Linux users with Nautilus file manager.

First install the package – “nautilus-actions“.

For Fedora, RHEL, Cent OS and other RPM based distributions

yum install nautilus-actions

For debian based distributions

apt-get install nautilus-actions

Fire “Nautilus Action Editor GUI” either from System -> Preferences -> Nautilus Actions Configuration or from command line:

open nautilus-actions-config-tool

From the tool-bar (below menubar), use the first button to ‘Define a new action‘. In the ‘Context Label’ field seen on the ‘Action’ tab, use something like ‘E-mail this file‘. And then switch to the ‘Command‘ tab and follow the following steps for your choice of e-mail client:

For using Evolution as the e-mail client:
In the ‘Command‘ tab, use ‘evolution’ in the Path field. And in the next Parameters field:
mailto:?attach="%u"
%u gives the file path in runtime.

For using Thunderbird as the e-mail client:
Now, navigate to the ‘Command‘ tab, and in the path filed, use ‘thunderbird’. The next one is ‘Parameters‘ field where we use
'-compose 'attachment=%u' .
%u gives the file path in runtime.

We save the changes by clicking on the second button on the tool-bar.

And, optionally, make it cleaner: Tools -> Preferences -> Runtime Preferences -> Nautilus Menu Layout

Deselect “Create a root ‘Nautilus-Actions’ menu” and “Add an About Nautilus-Actions’ item…”

OK and close the window.

Probably, we are done. Just in case the item isn’t visible, please find a way to restart Nautilus.