CliFM

The Command Line File Manager

Fast, extensible, lightweight

Linux, Termux (Android), FreeBSD, NetBSD, OpenBSD, MacOS, Haiku, Cygwin | x86, ARM

Install · Browse the documentation · Request feature · Report bug

🔸 Brief description
🔸 Features
🔸 Introduction video
🔸 Installation
🔸 Getting started
🔸 What's new?
🔸 Support
🔸 License
🔸 Contributing
🔸 Community

👾 Brief description

Clifm is a Command Line Interface File Manager: all input and interaction is performed via commands. This is its main feature and strength.

Unlike most terminal file managers out there, indeed, clifm replaces the traditional TUI interface (also known as curses or text-menu based interface) by a command-line interface (CLI),¹ also known as REPL.²

If working with the command-line, your workflow is not affected at all, but just enriched with file management functionalities: automatic files listing, files selection, bookmarks, tags, directory jumper, directory and commands history, auto-cd and auto-open, bulk rename, TAB completion, autosuggestions, and a trash system, among other features. In this sense, clifm is certainly a file manager, but also a shell extension.

Briefly put, with clifm the command-line is always already there, never hidden 💪

¹ For more information about these concepts see the resources page .
² For a detailed description consult the introductory section of our Wiki.

CliFM's interface

We only need 7 keystrokes to move all selected files into the images directory

✔️ Features

Click here to expand

Besides common file operations such as copy, move, remove, etc., clifm provides the following features:

Specific
- Really CLI-based. No GUI nor TUI at all, but just a command-line
- It can run on the kernel built-in console and even on a SSH or any other remote session
- Highly compatible with old VT102-only terminal emulators like Rxvt and Rxvt-based ones: even on a terminal with only 8 colors and no Unicode support, clifm will just work. It can run even on an old DEC-VT100 terminal!
- High performance. Incredibly lightweight and fast even on really old hardware
- Short (and even one-character) commands
- Entry list numbers (ELN's) for file names
- Extended color codes for file-types and -extensions
- Files counter for directories and symlinks to directories
- Privacy: Zero data collection and no connection to the outside world at all
- Security: Secure environment and secure commands. See also the stealth mode section
Navigation and file operations
- Bookmarks
- File tags
- File filters
- Files selection (supports both glob and regular expressions and works even across multiple instances of the program)
- Files search (supports both glob and regular expressions)
- copy(-as), move(-as), interactive rename, and open-with functions
- File names cleaner
- Autocommands
- Auto-cd, auto-open, and autols
- Directory jumper, similar to autojump, z.lua, and zoxide
- Virtual directories
- Fastback - Quickly change to any parent directory
- A built-in resource opener (supports regular expressions and is able to discern between GUI and non-GUI environments)
- A built-in Freedesktop-compliant trash system
- Up to eight workspaces
- Eleven sorting methods
- Bulk operations: rename, create, remove, and create symbolik links in bulk
- Files encryption/decryption (plugin)
- Copy files to your smart phone (plugin)
- Archiving and compression support (including Zstandard and ISO 9660)
- Symlinks editor
- File permissions/ownership editor via the pc and oc commands respectively
- Remote file systems management
- Mount/unmount storage devices
- Advanced Copy support (just cp and mv with a nice progress bar)
- Directory history map to keep in sight previous, current, and next entries in the directory history list
Shell
- Auto-suggestions
- TAB completion, with fzf integration (including file previews)
- Syntax highlighting
- Warning prompt for invalid command names
- Fused parameters for ELN's
- Fuzzy completion for file names and paths
- Wildcards expansion via TAB (s *.[ch]<TAB>)
- File types expansion via TAB (=l<TAB> to list all symlinks in the current dir)
- MIME types expansion (@image<TAB>)
- Bash-like quoting system
- Shell commands execution
- Sequential and conditional commands execution
- Directory and commands history
- Glob and regular expressions (including inverse matching)
- Aliases
- Logs
- Prompt and profile commands (run commands with each new prompt or at program startup)
Modes
- Stealth mode, also known as incognito or private mode
- Light mode (just in case it is not fast enough for you)
- Resource opener
- Disk usage analyzer mode
- Files lister (ls-mode)
Customization
- User profiles
- Customizable keyboard shortcuts
- Theming support (more than a dozen color schemes)
- Prompt customization
- Four customizable keybindings for custom plugins
- Compile features in/out
Misc
- Plugins
- File previews (via TAB completion or the view command)
- Icons support, including emoji-icons 😏
- Git integration
- Desktop notifications
- Unicode suppport
- Disk usage
- CD on quit and file picker functions
- A built-in pager for files listing
- Read and list files from STDIN (standard input)

Auto-suggestions in action

For a detailed explanation of each of these features, follow the corresponding links or consult the Wiki.

🎬 Introduction video

💾 Installation

Packaged versions

Packaging status

If running on Linux, binary packages are available for most major distributions.

Installing from source (Linux/BSD)

Note: Dependencies are most likely already satisfied, but in any case consult the dependencies section.

git clone https://github.com/leo-arch/clifm.git
cd clifm
sudo make install

For more information/supported platforms consult the installation page.

💡 Getting started

To start using clifm you don't need to learn anything new: the usual shell commands will just work. However, there is much more than just shell commands...
✓ The help command gives you a quick introduction to clifm: once in the clifm prompt, enter help or ?.
✓ Type cmd<TAB> to get the list of available commands and a brief description (since version 1.9.2).
✓ Type help <TAB> to get the list of available help topics. Select the one you want and press Enter.
✓ To jump into the COMMANDS section in the manpage, simply enter cmd or press F2.
✓ Press F1 to access the full manpage and F3 to access the keybindings help-page.
✓ To get help about some specific command just type CMD -h. For instance, s -h.

You can also take a look at some of these basic usage-examples to get you started.
For a complete description please consult our Wiki.

📰 What's new?

Click here to expand

Development
- NEW: Customizable timestamps (long view mode)
- NEW: Color gradients for file sizes and timestamps (long view)
- NEW: Use config dump to print the list of settings and their current value (highlighting those differing from default values)
- The config command is now used to open/edit the main configuration file (edit can still be used, but is deprecated and might be removed in a future release)
- FzfPreview (file previews in TAB completion - fzf mode only) is now enabled by default (disable via --no-fzfpreview)
- Improved jump table screen (via the j command)
- Purge the jump database via the --purge option
version 1.10 (Swordmaster):
- Quickly access the directory history list via the dh command. The dh plugin, just as the bh and fh commands, is now deprecated.
- History timestamps
- s: works now like sel keyword, to be in line with t: (for tags) and b: (for bookmarks). Consult the Files selection section.
- The :b construct was removed. b: now lists bookmark names instead of paths. b:mybm expands to the path pointed to by the bookmark named mybm. The ExpandBookmarks option (config file) is now deprecated, just as the bookmarks suggestions strategy (in the SuggestionStrategy option). See the Bookmarks section.
- Bookmarks can be created directly from the command line, without an interactive prompt: bm add FILE BM_NAME.
- Rename profiles via the rename subcommand
- oc, a files ownership editor
- Get list of commands and a brief description via cmd<TAB>
- Suggest a brief description for internal commands
- Set a custom selections file via the --sel-file flag
version 1.9 (Sharptooth):
- Improved fuzzy suggestions/completions for file names and paths
- Automatic expansion for bookmarks, file type, and MIME type filters
- Private workspace settings
- Run autocommands based on workspaces, and not just on paths
- Run the pager based on the current amount of files
- Files counter for directories in long view mode
- Filter files by file type
- Filter files by MIME type
- pc, a file permissions editor
- cd - works now just like in most shells
- The view command can now select files via TAB
- Launch the view command via Alt+-
- Use --fzfpreview-hidden to start the preview window hidden (toggle via Alt-p)
version 1.8 (Otis):
- If upgrading from a previous version (optional, but recommended):
  - F7 opens now shotgun's configuration file (instead of the jump database file). Update keybindings.clifm: removing the file and restarting is enough. Manually: run kb edit and then replace open-jump-db:\e[18~ by open-preview:\e[18~.
  - New specific options to control the files preview window. Add the following options to the FzfTabOptions line in your theme file (via the cs edit command) or just copy the theme file from the data directory (usually /usr/local/share/clifm/colors): --bind alt-p:toggle-preview,change:top,alt-up:preview-page-up,alt-down:preview-page-down --preview-window=wrap,border-left --color="border:7:dim".
- clifmimg plugin, for image previews
- view command, to preview files in full screen
- TAB completion with file previews
- Shotgun, a built-in files previewer
- Improved Unicode support for the suggestions system
- Flat-view for the fzfsel plugin via the -f option
- Improved VT100 compatibility via the --vt100 switch
- Cygwin support
- Improved performance/portability of the suggestions system: no more slow/non-portable CPR-CUP escape sequences! These were replaced by 100% made in-house cursor position calculation plus basic/portable escape sequences: CUU, CUD, CUF, and CUB.
version 1.7 (Elaine):
- Configuration files renamed from .cfm to .clifm (avoid conflict with ColdFusion files)
- Ctrl-l added for screen refresh
- cc command removed to avoid conflicts with /bin/cc (use colors instead)
- --std-tab-comp option renamed to --stdtab (to match --fzytab and --smenutab options)
version 1.6 (Guybrush):
- ELN's color defaults now to cyan
- --no-folders-first and --folders-first options renamed to --no-dirs-first and --dirs-first respectively. In the same way, the folders-first command was renamed to dirs-first.
- PromptStyle option renamed as Notifications (taking true and false as values)
version 1.5 (Nano):
- Prompt, WarningPromptStr, DividingLine, and FfzTabOptions options were moved from the config file to the color scheme file to get a centralized and single theming file. However, to keep backwards compatibility, the old location is still recognized. If any of these options is found in the color scheme file, values taken from the main configuration file will be overriden.
- The warning prompt color is set now via escape codes (exactly as the regular prompt). The wp color code is used now only for the input text color of the warning prompt.
version 1.4 (Alma):
- In order to make Lira more powerful (it can now match entire file names instead of just file extensions) it was necessary to introduce a little syntax modification in its configuration file.

For more details consult the changelog file.

Support

Clifm is C99 and POSIX-1.2008 compliant (if compiled with the _BE_POSIX flag). Consult the compilation page.
It works on Linux, Termux (Android), FreeBSD, NetBSD, OpenBSD, MacOS, Haiku, and Cygwin, on x86 and ARM architectures.

License

This project is licensed GPL version 2 (or later).
See the LICENSE file for details.

Contributing

Yes. Please see our contribution guidelines for details. at Hosted Weblate.

Community

Join our Gitter discussion room and let us know what you think: ideas, comments, observations and questions are always welcome.
The Discussions section of this repo is also open to input.

DosWorld / clifm