Mac Terminal File Explorer

Motivation

The terminal is the most-used tool for my daily work. Sometimes, I just want to navigate files and folders directly within the terminal. Therefore, a Terminal File Manager (TFM) is a necessary consideration to improve my productivity and streamline my tasks. On Windows, I use tere for this purpose. After shifting to macOS, I am looking for an alternative to tere.

Popular TFMs for macOS

There are several terminal file managers are recommended for macOS:

Ranger

• Ranger is a versatile file manager with Vim-like keybindings
• Written in Perl, very old
• Customizable through Python scripts

nnn

• nnn is a fast and lightweight file manager
• Tiny and requires nearly 0-config

Lf

• Lf stands for “List files”
• Written in Go, lightweight

Yazi

• Yazi is a newer option written in Rust
• Leveraging non-blocking async I/O
• Modern and intuitive interface
• Good documentation

Getting started

To install these tools on macOS, you can use package managers like Homebrew.

brew install nnn

After installation, simply type the name of the file manager in your terminal to launch it.

Some of the other useful shortcuts for nnn are:

Shortcut	Utility
.	toggle hidden files
d	toggle detail mode (show size, permissions and timestamps)
q	quit
/	filter (press / and start typing to filter the contents of the current directory. It is very useful and quick. Press / twice, it changes to \ and type a regular expression for filtering)
‘	first file match (press ' and then a character to go to the first file/diectory starting with that character)
^n	toggle type-to-navigate (type to filter and navigate, rather than commands)
B	bookmark the current directory (b to list all bookmarked directories)
~	takes you home (pressing ~ again takes you back). ` takes you to root, - back and @ start.
^T	toggle sort order (d enables the du (disk usage) mode where you can see the size of directories)
]	command prompt (^] for shell)
?	get help on all the keyboard shortcuts and configuration

Configure cd on quit

Ranger

If you hit Shift + S, it opens a new shell on the current directory. Then if you hit Ctrl + D on the shell, it goes back to ranger. This workaround is often good enough.

nnn

To set this up, place the following code in ~/.zshrc file. This creates a new alias n for launching nnn. When launched with the new alias n, your terminal directory will be changed on quitting nnn.

n ()
{
    # Block nesting of nnn in subshells
    [ "${NNNLVL:-0}" -eq 0 ] || {
        echo "nnn is already running"
        return
    }
 
    # The behaviour is set to cd on quit (nnn checks if NNN_TMPFILE is set)
    # If NNN_TMPFILE is set to a custom path, it must be exported for nnn to
    # see. To cd on quit only on ^G, remove the "export" and make sure not to
    # use a custom path, i.e. set NNN_TMPFILE *exactly* as follows:
    #      NNN_TMPFILE="${XDG_CONFIG_HOME:-$HOME/.config}/nnn/.lastd"
    export NNN_TMPFILE="${XDG_CONFIG_HOME:-$HOME/.config}/nnn/.lastd"
 
    # Unmask ^Q (, ^V etc.) (if required, see `stty -a`) to Quit nnn
    # stty start undef
    # stty stop undef
    # stty lwrap undef
    # stty lnext undef
 
    # The command builtin allows one to alias nnn to n, if desired, without
    # making an infinitely recursive alias
    command nnn "$@"
 
    [ ! -f "$NNN_TMPFILE" ] || {
        . "$NNN_TMPFILE"
        rm -f -- "$NNN_TMPFILE" > /dev/null
    }
}

You can find more details here.

Yazi

Use the following yy shell wrapper that provides the ability to change the current working directory when exiting Yazi.

function yy() {  
	local tmp="$(mktemp -t "yazi-cwd.XXXXXX")"  
	yazi "$@" --cwd-file="$tmp"  
	if cwd="$(cat -- "$tmp")" && [ -n "$cwd" ] && [ "$cwd" != "$PWD" ]; then  
		builtin cd -- "$cwd"  
	fi  
	rm -f -- "$tmp"  
}

To use it, copy the function into the configuration file of your respective shell. Then use yy instead of yazi to start.

You can fine more details here.

Learn more

• Setup nnn on MacOS