being able to reduce space between icons

This bug is an upstream one and it would be quite helpful if somebody experiencing it could send the bug the to the people writing the software. You can learn more about how to do this for various upstreams at https://wiki.ubuntu.com/Bugs/Upstream/GNOME. Thanks in advance!

Thank you for your bug report. This bug has been reported to the developers of the software. You can track it and make comments at:
 https://bugzilla.gnome.org/show_bug.cgi?id=626838

Please add my vote to this. Refer to screenshot, with zoom of 400%.

Please add my vote to this. Refer to screenshot, with zoom of 200%.

In nautilus 3.x i had the same problem especially with the thumbnails of music folders. I found a solution using dconf-editor and puting the value of icon-size to 126 in state of 64 (org/gnome/nautilus/icon-view).

I hope this can help : i have almost no space left betwwen my icons (thumbnails) and i love it ;-)

upstream considers the issue resolved in 3.16

This bug was fixed in the package nautilus - 1:3.18.2-1ubuntu1

---------------
nautilus (1:3.18.2-1ubuntu1) xenial; urgency=medium

  * New version (lp: #1463662) and resynchronize on Debian
    - better layout in the icons view (lp: #589433, #1019298)
    - can move link type .desktop (lp: #1278437)
  * The update uses GtkHeaderBar decorations and has no menubar for now,
    the menus are coming back later and UI is likely to be tweaked again
    based on the feedback from this version
  * Removed changed, deprecated or included in the new version
  * debian/patches/revert_remove_unused_GtkActions.patch:
  * debian/patches/restore-traditional-menu-bar.patch:
    - not needed with the new proper menubar changeset
  * debian/patches/11_copy_skipping_pager.patch:
    - the new version has no copy dialog
  * debian/patches/14_bring_del_instead_ctrl_del.patch:
    - resolved in the new version
  * debian/patches/git_name_column.patch,
    debian/patches/git_multiple_desktop_names.patch,
    debian/patches/git_file_dnd.patch,
    debian/patches/git_sidebar_selection.patch,
    debian/patches/git_slot_order.patch,
    debian/patches/git_unmount_seg.patch,
    debian/patches/git_valid_list.patch,
    debian/patches/git_nomodel_segfault.patch,
    debian/patches/git_open_dir_with.patch,
    debian/patches/git_wrap_label.patch,
    debian/patches/git_null_uri.patch,
    debian/patches/git_revert_location_entry.patch,
    debian/patches/ignore-no-desktop-if-not-first-launch.patch,
    0001-application-use-correct-order-to-watch-for-GSettings.patch:
    - included in the new version
  * Remaining changes
  * debian/control.in:
    - Build-Depends on dh-migrations, libunity-dev,
      updated gnome-pkg-tools requirement
    - lower gnome-sushi Recommends to a Suggests
    - don't recommends gnome-icon-theme-symbolic it's deprecated
    - nautilus-data should not need to recommends nautilus,
      lower to a suggests so file-roller doesn't bring in nautilus
  * debian/changelog, debian/rules: set epoch number (which was added by error)
  * debian/mount-archive.desktop:
  * debian/mount-archive.desktop.in:
    - New nautilus context menu item to allow mounting zip, iso, etc
  * debian/nautilus.install:
    - don't move the autostart to usr
    - install mount-archive menu
    - install nautilus-folder-handler.desktop
  * debian/nautilus-data.install:
    - install apport hook
  * debian/nautilus-folder-handler.desktop:
    - ship a copy of nautilus.desktop with NoDisplay=true since some user
      configurations refer to it
  * debian/nautilus.migrations,
    debian/nautilus-unity-launcher-icon-rename.py:
    - change the nautilus.desktop entry in the unity configuration to the
      new org.gnome.Nautilus name (lp: #1436297)
  * debian/source_nautilus.py:
    - Apport hook to list versions of files in /usr/lib/nautilus and reassign
      the crashes when there are not due to nautilus code directly
  * debian/rules:
    - use dh_migrations and build compat desktop entries
  * debian/patches/03_translations_list_update.patch:
    - Translate the mount-archive menu entry
  * debian/patches/04_suppress_umount_in_ltsp.patch:
    - Don't list unmount and eject...