Why

Broot

Broot is a better way to navigate directories, find files, and launch commands.

Complete Documentation - Installation Instructions - Contributing or Getting Help

Get an overview of a directory, even a big one

Hit br -s

Notice the unlisted?

That's what makes it usable, where the old tree command would produce pages of output.

.gitignore files are properly dealt with to put unwanted files out of your way.

As you sometimes want to see gitignored files, or hidden ones, you'll soon get used to the alti and alth shortcuts to toggle those visibilities.

(you can ignore them though, see documentation).

Find a directory, then cd to it

type a few letters

Hit altenter and you're back to the terminal in the desired location.

This way, you can navigate to a directory with the minimum amount of keystrokes, even if you don't exactly remember where it is.

Broot is fast and doesn't block (any keystroke interrupts the current search to start the next one).

Most useful keys for this:

• the letters of what you're looking for
• enter on the root line to go up to the parent (staying in broot)
• enter to focus a directory (staying in broot)
• esc to get back to the previous state or clear your search
• ↓ and ↑ may be used to move the selection
• altenter to get back to the shell, having cd to the selected directory
• alth to toggle showing hidden files (the ones whose name starts with a dot)
• alti to toggle showing gitignored files
• :q if you just want to quit (you can use ctrlq if you prefer)

Never lose track of file hierarchy while you search

Broot tries to select the most relevant file. You can still go from one match to another one using tab or arrow keys.

You may also search with a regular expression. To do this, add a / before the pattern.

And you have other types of searches, for example, searching on file content (start with c/):

You may also apply logical operators or combine patterns, for example, searching test in all files except JSON ones could be !/json$/&c/test and searching carg both in file names and file contents would be carg|c/carg.

Once the file you want is selected, you can

• hit enter (or double-click) to open it in your system's default program
• hit altenter to open it in your system's default program and close broot
• hit ctrl→ (or alt→ on macOS) to preview it (and then a second time to go inside the preview)
• type a verb. For example, :e opens the file in your preferred editor (which may be a terminal one)

blog: a broot content search workflow

Manipulate your files

Most often, when not using broot, you move your files in the blind. You do a few ls before, then your manipulation, and maybe you check after.

You can instead do it without losing the view of the file hierarchy.

Move, copy, rm, mkdir, are built in, and you can add your own shortcuts.

Here's chmod:

Manage files with panels

When a directory is selected, do ctrl→ and you open another panel (you may open other ones, or navigate between them, with ctrl← and ctrl→).

(yes, colors are fully customizable)

You can, for example, copy or move elements between panels:

If you like, you may do it Norton Commander style by binding :copy_to_panel to F5 and :move_to_panel to F6.

Preview files

Hit ctrl→ when a file is selected, and the preview panel appears.

The preview panel stays synchronized with the selection in the tree panels.

Broot displays images in high resolution when the terminal supports Kitty's graphics protocol (compatible terminals: Kitty, WezTerm):

Apply a standard or personal command to a file

Just find the file you want to edit with a few keystrokes, type :e, then enter.

You can add verbs or configure the existing ones; see documentation.

And you can add shortcuts, for example, a ctrl sequence or a function key

This is the beginning of the README. Read the rest at the original. Read the full README ↗