Dolphin gains Miller Columns view ahead of 26.12 decision

KDE’s Dolphin file manager has a new Columns view mode: each column is one folder, and opening a directory fills the next column so the path from the root of the browse down to the current selection stays visible. The layout is Miller columns, the navigation style Mark S. Miller introduced in 1980 and long familiar from classic Mac OS and other file browsers.

Méven announced the work and is collecting testing before a decision on November 12 on whether the mode ships in Dolphin 26.12. Early reaction has been strong. Nate Graham called the implementation solid and said he had wanted the feature for a decade.

Testers are already raising interaction details that matter for day-to-day use. Clearing a selection in a middle column currently drops the deeper columns on the right, which some users find abrupt when they only meant to act on a parent while keeping a drilled-down tree open. Drag and drop to any visible folder already works for moves and copies; keyboard paste into a parent while leaving child columns open does not, and Méven noted that split views already cover that transfer pattern. Another request, pinning the open parent folder to the top of each column instead of leaving it in plain alphabetical order, was accepted as straightforward to add.

Whether Columns lands in 26.12 now depends on how much of that polish lands before the cutoff and how widely people try the mode in the meantime.