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Batch resizing images using a Nautilus extension

Something I do very often is resizing images. I wrote about it before, and for a long time I’ve settled on a custom bash script.

I’ve recently found a somewhat better option: integrating a button in Nautilus, the Ubuntu file explorer.

Possible but nope

There a many ways to integrate custom code inside Nautilus in order to extend it. For example:

Nautilus

Nautilus proposes a simple way to create scripts on files:

This way, you can write an executable file in whatever language you like (bash, python, rust…) in order to perform tasks on said files.

Our script

Save this as resize-image.py, make it executable (chmod +x resize-image.py) and copy it to ~/.local/share/nautilus/scripts. You can now select a few image files in Nautilus, right click on them -> scripts -> resize image.

#! /usr/bin/env python3

# resize an image to 25% of its original size, and store the result in
# the `small` subdirectory
# select the image files you want to resize, right click, and under Script
# choose resize-image

import os
import subprocess

def new_filename(filewithpath, subdirectory='small'):
    directory = os.path.dirname(filewithpath)
    filename = os.path.basename(filewithpath)
    target_directory = os.path.join(directory, subdirectory)
    try:
        os.mkdir(target_directory)
    except FileExistsError as e:
        # The directory already exists and yes, this exception is poorly named
        pass
    target_filename = os.path.join(target_directory, filename)
    return target_filename



def main():
    for filepath in os.getenv('NAUTILUS_SCRIPT_SELECTED_FILE_PATHS', '').splitlines():
        small_filename = new_filename(filepath)
        subprocess.run(["convert", "-resize", "25%", filepath, small_filename])



if __name__ == '__main__':
    # alternatively you can test this script by hand by setting the env var yourself:
    # export NAUTILUS_SCRIPT_SELECTED_FILE_PATHS='/home/some/full/path/test.png'; python resize-image.py 
    main()

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