Add 'Open with VS Code' to Thunar Right-Click Menu in Xfce

If you’re using the Xfce desktop environment with the Thunar file manager, you can improve your workflow by adding custom right-click actions to open folders directly in your favorite editors like Visual Studio Code and Cursor.

This guide explains how to do that — and what %f really means in Thunar’s custom actions.

✅ What Does %f Mean?

When creating a custom action in Thunar, placeholders like %f are used to refer to the selected item. Here’s what they mean:

• %f: The first selected file or folder, with full path.
• %F: All selected files or folders, space-separated.
• %d: The directory containing the selected item.
• %n: The name of the selected item (without path).

For example, if you select a folder named ~/Projects/site/, the command:

code %f

…will be executed as:

code /home/yourname/Projects/site/

This is perfect for opening entire folders in code editors.

✅ Add ‘Open with VS Code’

1. Open Thunar.
2. Go to Edit → Configure custom actions...
3. Click + to add a new action.

Basic Tab:

• Name: Open with VS Code
• Command: code %f
• (Optional) Icon path: /usr/share/pixmaps/code.png or use the default VS Code icon

Appearance Conditions Tab:

• Leave File Pattern empty
• Check: ✅ Directories

✅ Add ‘Open with Cursor’

If you’re using Cursor — an AI-enhanced code editor based on VS Code — you can add a similar custom action:

Basic Tab:

• Name: Open with Cursor
• Command: cursor %f
• (Make sure the cursor command is available in your terminal PATH)

Appearance Conditions:

• ✅ Directories

• 💡 If you want the “Open with VS Code” option to appear for both files and folders, enable both “Directories” and “Other Files” in the Appearance Conditions tab.

💡 Bonus: Open Multiple Files with %F

If you want to allow opening multiple selected files or folders, just change the command to use %F instead of %f:

code %F

This will open everything you selected in a single VS Code window.