Broot

A better way to navigate directories

Table of Contents

• Installation
• Feature Showcase
  • Get an overview of a directory, even a big one
  • Find a directory then cd to it
  • Never lose track of file hierarchy while you search
  • Manipulate your files
  • Do it with panels
  • Apply a standard or personal shortcut to a file
  • Replace ls (and its clones)
  • See what takes space
  • Check git statuses
• Further Reading

Installation

Full installation documentation can be found here.

Feature Showcase

Get an overview of a directory, even a big one

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 (you can ignore them though, see documentation).

Find a directory then cd to it

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 never blocks, even when you make it search a big slow disk (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 to select a directory (staying in broot)
• esc to get back to the previous state or clear your search
• altenter to get back to the shell having cd to the selected directory
• :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/):

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
• type a verb. For example :e opens the file in your preferred editor (which may be a terminal one)

Manipulate your files

Most often 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.

Do it with panels

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)

Using two panels, you can for example copy or move elements between them:

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

Apply a standard or personal shortcut 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 shorcuts, for example a ctrl sequence or a function key

Replace ls (and its clones):

If you want to display dates and permissions, do br -dp which gets you this:

You may also toggle options with a few keystrokes while inside broot. For example hitting a space, a d then enter shows you the dates. Or a space, then h then enter and you see hidden files.

See what takes space:

If you start broot with the --sizes option, or if you type :s while in broot, you get a mode tailored to "whale spotting" navigation, making it easy to determine what files or folders take space.

And you keep all broot tools, like filtering or the ability to delete or open files and directories.

Sizes are computed in the background, you don't have to wait for them when you navigate.

check git statuses:

Use :gf to display the statuses of files (what are the new ones, the modified ones, etc.), the current branch name and the change statistics.

And if you want to see only the files which would be displayed by the git status command, do :gs.

Further Reading

See Broot's web site for instructions regarding installation and usage.