This answer may disappoint you, but here it is. Since many years, Nautilus developers are deprecating the option to run executable all over the place by double clicking on them.

One of the arguments is that executables must be curated. They should be run by users that know what they do. Else, they should be properly installed on conventional locations if they are to be run by the general users of the system.

A developer will test his executables from a terminal. A user should never be confronted with the risk of starting some - potentially malicious - process by double clicking a file somewhere in his file system. I think that is an important consideration why this option was deprecated, and now with Files 40, has been effectively removed.

This is how you should go about this:

Executables for regular use

• Place your shell scripts in a folder ~/.local/share/bin or ~/bin. Any of these two folders will automatically be included in your search PATH —the variable that tells the system where to look for executables when you type their name at the prompt.


• Execute your shellscript by typing its name in the terminal or in the Run dialog (Alt+F2).


• Optionally include the script in your application overview by creating a .desktop launcher for it in ~/.local/share/applications.

Ad-hoc execution of executables for those users who know what they do

For quick running, open a terminal in the current directory ("Open terminal here" in the file manager), and run it specifying the current directory, e.g.

./myscript

For example, power users compiling software do this all the time. They move into the directory containing the configuration script, and execute it as:

./configure