Can I make nautilus show book covers as thumbnails for Epub files?

Question

The Problem

Can I make nautilus show thumbnails of book covers for files in .epub format?

It shows thumbnails for pdf files but not .epub. Is this achievable by adding a thumbnailer?

Each of these .epub files has a cover.jpeg file inside it.

Example Epub file (Google Drive)

Sure, but where to get the images from? Ah, wait, it is inside the files. — Jacob Vlijm, May 01 '17 at 10:22
@JacobVlijm Each of the epub files has a cover.jpeg file just inside it — Sumeet Deshmukh, May 01 '17 at 10:23
Yeah, I overlooked it :) Could you add a link to an epub file? I don't have any to check on. — Jacob Vlijm, May 01 '17 at 10:24
Got it! not sure if I can try today, but I definitely will :) — Jacob Vlijm, May 01 '17 at 10:31
Hi Sumeet I am so sorry for the delay, kind of in a time shortage, I can only spend a few minutes per day atm. Will get back though. — Jacob Vlijm, May 04 '17 at 14:00
@JacobVlijm I've updated the question with a development this might be helpful — Sumeet Deshmukh, May 04 '17 at 14:02
@SumeetDeshmukh make that an answer please (you can use the answer as a work in progress) — Rinzwind, May 08 '17 at 13:15
@Rinzwind but that answer doesn't work? How will I let people know that I want to find out what's wrong with the posted answer? (i'm still pretty new here) — Sumeet Deshmukh, May 08 '17 at 13:17
A better approach would be to edit your question and include the "update" as though you had written it this way from the beginning. As it stands, it really isn't very clear which is why @Rinzwind suggested you post an answer: presumably, he thought the script did work at least partially. So, just rewrite this so that i) you state the problem and ii) the solution you have so far and iii) exactly what more you need. How does it work and how does it fail? — terdon, May 08 '17 at 15:41
@terdon Is the updated version Good enough? more suggestions are welcome ;) — Sumeet Deshmukh, May 08 '17 at 17:34
There's no need to re-invent the wheel here. This has been done. See here — Elder Geek, May 08 '17 at 20:48
@ElderGeek I think I'm using that same script, but from another answer, I think I should ReadMe on Github — Sumeet Deshmukh, May 09 '17 at 03:35
Sounds like a good plan. Bravo for adding the link to your question. :-) — Elder Geek, May 09 '17 at 12:55

score 9 · Accepted Answer · edited Jul 06 '19 at 12:41

9

No need to worry about scripts. do everything one by one

 sudo apt-get install python-pil

Now download this file from epub-thumbnailer GitHub page

now extract that file to a folder, and go into the extracted folder, Right click in empty space and select Open in Terminal and type the following command

sudo python install.py install
nautilus -q

now check your Epub files they should have thumbnails

edited Jul 06 '19 at 12:41

Sumeet Deshmukh

9,336

answered May 16 '17 at 09:55

Yoginee Pingale

1,300

well I already did it with the help of Elder Geek in comments but thanks for the answer anyway. procedure was pretty much the same – Sumeet Deshmukh May 16 '17 at 09:56
Thx. Got it working on ubuntu 18 by installing: sudo apt-get install python-pil – Osolong Nov 22 '18 at 16:30

score 3 · Answer 2 · answered Aug 20 '22 at 23:10

It works like a charm in Ubuntu 22.04.01

$ lsb_release -a 
No LSB modules are available.
Distributor ID: Ubuntu
Description:    Ubuntu 22.04.1 LTS
Release:    22.04
Codename:   jammy

$ python --version
Python 3.10.4

Step by step instructions

Clone the epub-thumbnailer projectgit clone https://github.com/marianosimone/epub-thumbnailer.git
Change directory cd epub-thumbnailer/
Install Pillow pip install Pillow
Install epub-thumbnailer sudo python3 install.py install

Checking dependencies ...

Required dependencies:
Python Imaging Library .......
OK
Installing epub-thumbnailer to /usr/bin/ ...
OK
Installing thumbnailer hook in /usr/share/thumbnailers ...
OK
You might have to restart your file manager for the thumbnailer to be activated.

Clear the cache rm -rf ~/.cache/thumbnails
Restart your file manager
Done!

This works for Ubuntu 20.04 and 22.04 but for 24.04 use https://askubuntu.com/a/1520646/429234 — Tarek, Mar 12 '25 at 21:13

score 1 · Answer 3 · answered Jul 15 '24 at 15:17

1

Using `gnome-epub-thumbnailer`

GNOME has a thumbnailer for EPUB files that is not installed by default. It's called gnome-epub-thumbnailer. Install it from the Ubuntu repositories like this:

sudo apt install gnome-epub-thumbnailer

Then restart the Files application (also known as Nautilus) by running nautilus --quit. Now it should work beautifully:

answered Jul 15 '24 at 15:17

Flimm

43,943

This works for Ubuntu 24.04 – Tarek Mar 12 '25 at 21:12

Can I make nautilus show book covers as thumbnails for Epub files?

The Problem

3 Answers3

Step by step instructions

Using gnome-epub-thumbnailer

Using `gnome-epub-thumbnailer`