It updates for me. For example (and I just tested this), if some other process copies a file into the directory I have open in dolphin, I see the file appear pretty instantly.
That's great, what do I have to do to make mine do that?
Check your inotify maximums - this is the system which monitors directory contents and notifies applications of changes. These maximums used to be pretty low, but should be high enough for most users these days. Do you tend to work with multiple directories containing lots of files?
See what you get when you run these two commands:
sysctl fs.inotify.max_user_watches
sysctl fs.inotify.max_user_instances
You can increase them temporarily like so and see if it helps:
sudo sysctl -w fs.inotify.max_user_watches=524288
sudo sysctl -w fs.inotify.max_user_instances=1024
If it does help, add to /etc/sysctl.conf (or a file in /etc/sysctl.d/).
It works on mine out of the box so it's probably related to something further down the stack. I probably can't help but what distro?
What distro are you using?
Debian quite literally calls the package “dolphin” so running this command will purge it and reinstall it;
sudo apt purge dolphin; sudo apt install dolphin -y
I know the Windows version has issues updating folders live, but on my Debian machine have not encountered such issue.
Alternatively you can purge KDE itself and reinstall everything.
sudo apt purge *kde*; sudo apt install kde-full kde-standard kde-plasma-desktop task-kde-desktop sddm -y
Might be this bug. You can add more information to it and possibly help the devs fix it. There's another one that seems to be the issue, but presenting differently.
I have the same issue on all four machines that use Dolphin. I've accepted having to hit F5 to refresh and I'm not looking to switch file managers, but if there is a fix I'd love to implement it!
If you like virtual buttons you can also put a "Refresh" button in the top bar of Dolphin, have had that for years (and only need to use it very rarely nowadays).
Thanks for the heads up. Not a perfect fix, but I think it'll help a little!
Copying my comment to OP below - it might be worth checking:
Check your inotify maximums - this is the system which monitors directory contents and notifies applications of changes. These maximums used to be pretty low, but should be high enough for most users these days. Do you tend to work with multiple directories containing lots of files?
See what you get when you run these two commands:
sysctl fs.inotify.max_user_watches
sysctl fs.inotify.max_user_instances
You can increase them temporarily like so and see if it helps:
sudo sysctl -w fs.inotify.max_user_watches=524288
sudo sysctl -w fs.inotify.max_user_instances=1024
If it does help, add to /etc/sysctl.conf (or a file in /etc/sysctl.d/).
My dolphin does not behave like that. So there is something else going on for you.
Does this happen when browsing local files or just network shares (SMB or Vs ssh) ?
Both. All network share and any local files edited outside of the dolphin. Do if I mkdir on my pc it won't show until I close dolphin or F5. If I copy and paste through sftp it just pretends it didn't happen until I close dolphin. This is not true on Nautilus.
My dolphin takes ~0.5 seconds, I don't really see any problem, but, if you want try something PCMan file manager updated instantly, I just don't like the icons but it's up for you.
If it helps I'm running Kubuntu 26.04 LTS
PS: "Files" by "The Gnome Project" has better icons and UX and updates instantly-
It does and I've been using it lately, but I really want my pretty theming.
Is it only happening with folders that are or have symlinks?
I'm not sure how to tell? It happens with any media I move, either on my computer or through sftp.
Which version of KDE/dolphin are you using?
Try Krusader for a different KDE file manager. I quite like how it looks but don't use it regularly.
I like thunar with Arc theme but it's Gtk based, and you really need to install thunar and its plugins (volman, archive manager, etc)
i haven't used kde for quite a while; but maybe konqueror could work better?
Are you using btrfs by any chance? I think copy-on-write can sometimes cause delays in Dolphin. Mine doesn't always update the free disk space right away when I delete a file, for example.
I can't say I know what that is.
Oh sorry! In Linux there are different ways of formatting your drives, kind of like FAT32 and NTFS in Windows, if you're familiar with those? Anyway, ext4 is like the old reliable in Linux, and btrfs is the newer one which I think is the default on some distros now.
Anyway, if you open up Konsole and type lsblk -f it should tell you which one you have. I don't think you can change it without reformatting and starting over though.
Oh ok, I know what page we're on now. I use ext4 for all my drives, save for 2 loaner flash drives in NTFS and the drive for my hacked 360 in fat32.
Press F5 to refresh.
That's dumb, even windows isn't that dumb.
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