nnn - Supercharge your productivity!

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[Features] [Quickstart] [Plugins] [Documentation]

nnn (n³) is a full-featured terminal file manager. It's tiny and nearly 0-config with an incredible speed.

It is designed to be unobtrusive with smart workflows to match the trains of thought.

nnn can analyze disk usage, batch rename, launch apps and pick files. The plugin repository has tons of plugins and documentation to extend the capabilities further e.g. preview, (un)mount disks, find & list, file/dir diff, upload files.

There are 2 independent (neo)vim plugins - nnn.vim and vim-floaterm nnn wrapper.

It runs smoothly on the Pi, Termux (Android), Linux, macOS, BSD, Haiku, Cygwin, WSL, across DEs and GUI utilities or a strictly CLI environment.

Expand for some nnn magic! 🕶

Instantly load, sort, filter thousands of files
Type to navigate with automatic dir selection
List input stream and pick entries to stdout or file
find/fd/grep/ripgrep/fzf from nnn and list in nnn
Never lose context - start where you quit
Mount any cloud storage service in a few keypresses
Select files from anywhere (not just a single dir)
Unlimited bookmarks, plugins, cmds with custom hotkeys
Write a plugin in any language you know
Edit and preview markdown, man page, html
Open a file and auto-advance to the next
Filter filtered entries, export list of visible files
Configure the middle mouse click to do anything
Fuzzy search subtree and open a file (or its parent dir)
Load four dirs with custom settings at once
Notifications on cp, mv, rm completion
Auto-sync selection to system clipboard
Access selection from another instance of nnn
Open text files detached in another pane/tab/window
Mount and modify archives
Create files/dirs/duplicates with parents (like mkdir -p)
Toggle hidden with ., visit HOME with ~, last dir with -
Mark a frequently visited dir at runtime
Sort by modification, access and inode change time
Compile out/in features with make variables
Watch matrix text fly or read fortune messages
Configure in 5 minutes!

Features

Frugal
- Typically needs less than 3.5MB resident memory
- Works with 8 colors (and xterm 256 colors)
- Disk-IO sensitive (few disk reads and writes)
- No FPU usage (all integer maths, even for file size)
- Minimizes screen refresh with fast line redraws
- Tiny binary (typically around 100KB)
- 1-column mode for smaller terminals and form factors
- Hackable - compile in/out features and dependencies
Portable
- Language-agnostic plugins
- Static binary available (no need to install)
- Minimal library deps, easy to compile
- No config file, minimal config with sensible defaults
- Plugin to backup configuration
- Widely available on many packagers
- Touch enabled, comfortable on handhelds too!
- Unicode support
Quality
- Privacy-aware (no unconfirmed user data collection)
- POSIX-compliant, follows Linux kernel coding style
- Highly optimized, static analysis integrated code
Modes
- Light (default), detail
- Disk usage analyzer (block/apparent)
- File picker, (neo)vim plugin
Navigation
- Type-to-nav mode with dir auto-select
- Contexts (aka tabs/workspaces) with custom colors
- Sessions, bookmarks with hotkeys; mark and visit a dir
- Remote mounts (needs sshfs, rclone)
- Familiar shortcuts (arrows, ~, -, @), quick look-up
- CD on quit (easy shell integration)
- Auto-advance on opening files
Search
- Instant filtering with search-as-you-type
- Regex (POSIX/PCRE) and string (default) filters
- Subtree search plugin to open or edit files
Sort
- Ordered pure numeric names by default (visit /proc)
- Case-insensitive version (aka natural) sort
- By name, access/change/mod (default) time, size, extn
- Reverse sort
Mimes
- Preview hovered files in FIFO-based previewer
- Open with desktop opener or specify a custom opener
- File-specific colors (or minimal dirs in context color)
- Icons (customize and compile-in)
- Plugins for image and video thumbnails
- Create, list, extract, mount (FUSE based) archives
- Option to open all text files in EDITOR
Information
- Detailed file information
- Media information plugin
Convenience
- Run plugins and custom commands with hotkeys
- FreeDesktop compliant trash (needs trash-cli)
- Cross-dir file/all/range selection
- Create (with parents), rename, duplicate files and dirs
- Batch renamer for selection or dir
- List input stream of file paths from stdin or plugin
- Copy (as), move (as), delete, archive, link selection
- Dir updates, notification on cp, mv, rm completion
- Copy file paths to system clipboard on select
- Launch apps, run commands, spawn a shell, toggle exe
- Access hovered file as $nnn at prompt or spawned shell
- Lock terminal after configurable idle timeout
- Basic support for screen readers and braille displays

Quickstart

Install nnn and any dependencies you need. All files are opened with the desktop opener by default.
Add option -e to your alias to open text files in $VISUAL/$EDITOR/ vi. Open detached if you wish.
Configure cd on quit.
Install plugins.
Use option -x to copy selected file paths to system clipboard and show notis on cp, mv, rm completion.
For a CLI-only environment, customize and use plugin nuke with option -c (overrides -e).
Bid ls goodbye! alias ls='nnn -de' 😎

Don't memorize! Arrows (or h j k l), /, q suffice. Tab creates, cycles contexts. ? lists shortcuts.

Videos

Elsewhere

AddictiveTips
ArchWiki
FOSSMint
gHacks Tech News
Hacker News [1] [2]
It's FOSS
Linux Format Issue 265; Manage files with nnn
LinuxLinks [1] [2] [3]
Linux Magazine; FOSSPicks
Make Tech Easier
Open Source For You
Suckless Rocks
Ubuntu Full Circle Magazine Issue 135; Review: nnn
Using and Administering Linux: Volume 2: Zero to SysAdmin: Advanced Topics
Wikipedia

Developers

0xACE
Anna Arad
KlzXS
Léo Villeveygoux
Maxim Baz
Todd Yamakawa
and other contributors

Visit the ToDo list to contribute or see the features in progress.