tfm (terminal file manager)

A modern, mouse-first file manager with places sidebar, grid view, drag & drop, image thumbnails right inside your terminal

Warning

Experimental vibecoded software — expect rough edges. Don't test on files you can't afford to lose. If you want to test safely, use Podman: podman run --rm -it archlinux bash

Important

This is still a terminal UI running inside your terminal, expect some visual/behavioral anomalies.

Features

• Mouse-first: click, rubber-band select, context menus, inline rename
• Drag & drop: move between folders (ctrl+drag), drag out to other apps, drop in from outside — cross-app DnD is kitty-only (OSC 72), in-app drag works everywhere
• Desktop integration: GTK bookmarks, recent files (recently-used.xbel), XDG trash with restore, system clipboard bridge
• Embedded terminal: right-click empty space → Open Terminal Here runs $SHELL in a pane at the current folder; keys hand off to tfm when you click the grid
• Previews: kitty image thumbnails, tree-sitter syntax highlighting, folder stats
• Themes: 30+ bundled presets (Tokyo Night, Catppuccin, Dracula, Gruvbox, Nord, Rose Pine, Solarized, …) with live switching, fully configurable via config.toml

Requirements

• Linux
• A terminal with the kitty graphics protocol — recommended: kitty (full experience incl. cross-app drag & drop); ghostty gets thumbnails but not cross-app drag; others fall back to Nerd Font glyphs
• Runtime helpers (the installer checks these and tells you what's missing):
  • rsvg-convert — theme-tinted icons (else Nerd Font glyphs)
  • magick — SVG image thumbnails
  • ffmpeg — video thumbnails & previews (else videos show plain icons)
  • gio — Nautilus-compatible trash & starred files
  • xdg-open — opening files in their default app
  • udisksctl — removable-drive mount/eject
  • wl-paste/wl-copy or xclip — clipboard bridge with GUI apps

Install

curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/clarkarch/tfm-tui/main/install.sh | bash

Installs to ~/.local/bin as tfm (and terminal-file-manager). Prebuilt binaries for linux x86_64/aarch64 are on Releases.

From source:

bun install
bun run compile && cp dist/tfm ~/.local/bin/

Dev: bun dev. Launch anywhere with tfm ~/some/path.

Keys

Key	Action
type anywhere	live search · enter opens first match · esc cancels
enter / f2	open / rename
backspace	parent directory
esc	menu (settings, view mode, sort, …)
ctrl+q	quit
ctrl+z / ctrl+y	undo / redo (ctrl+shift+z works too)
ctrl+x / ctrl+c / ctrl+v	cut / copy / paste
ctrl+a	select all
ctrl+h	toggle hidden files
ctrl+r	reload sidebar places
ctrl+t / ctrl+w	new tab / close tab (middle-click a chip also closes)
ctrl+tab / ctrl+shift+tab	next / previous tab
delete	trash (delete again in trash: permanent)
ctrl+click / shift+click	toggle / range select
plain drag / ctrl+drag	drag out of terminal / move inside tfm
right-click	context menu

All keys are remappable under [keys] in config.toml (or esc → Settings → Keys).

Config

~/.config/tfm/config.toml — see config.example.toml. Themes, tile size, session restore, glyph-only icon mode.

Limitations

• Linux only; no macOS/Windows support
• Image thumbnails need a kitty-graphics-protocol terminal (kitty, ghostty); others fall back to Nerd Font glyphs
• tmux hides rasters unless allow-passthrough is on; icons render but won't display images
• Cross-device moves are copy+delete (no atomic rename across filesystems) — they run through the copy engine with the progress toast
• Drag & drop to/from other apps is kitty-only (OSC 72): ghostty does image thumbnails and in-app drag (ctrl+drag), but cross-app drag won't work there
• Custom kitty themes might misbehave

License

MIT