nnn - Supercharge your productivity!

nnn in action

[Features] [Quickstart] [Plugins] [Documentation]

nnn (n³) is a full-featured terminal file manager. It's tiny and nearly 0-config with an incredible speed.

It is designed to be unobtrusive with smart workflows to match the trains of thought.

nnn can analyze disk usage, batch rename, launch apps and pick files. The plugin repository has tons of plugins and documentation to extend the capabilities further e.g. preview, (un)mount disks, find & list, file/dir diff, upload files.

There are 2 independent (neo)vim plugins - nnn.vim and vim-floaterm nnn wrapper.

It runs smoothly on the Pi, Termux (Android), Linux, macOS, BSD, Haiku, Cygwin, WSL, across DEs and GUI utilities or a strictly CLI environment.

Expand for some nnn magic! 🕶️

• Instantly load, sort, filter thousands of files
• Type to navigate with automatic dir selection
• List input stream and pick entries to stdout or file
• find/fd/grep/ripgrep/fzf from nnn and list in nnn
• Never lose context - start where you quit
• Mount any cloud storage service in a few keypresses
• Select files from anywhere (not just a single dir)
• Unlimited bookmarks, plugins, cmds with custom hotkeys
• Write a plugin in any language you know
• Edit and preview markdown, man page, HTML
• Open a file and auto-advance to the next
• Filter filtered entries, export list of visible files
• Configure the middle mouse click to do anything
• Fuzzy search subtree and open a file (or its parent dir)
• Load four dirs with custom settings at once
• Notifications on cp, mv, rm completion
• Auto-sync selection to system clipboard
• Access selection from another instance of nnn
• Open text files detached in another pane/tab/window
• Mount and modify archives
• Create files/dirs/duplicates with parents (like mkdir -p)
• Toggle hidden with ., visit $HOME with ~, last dir with -
• Mark a frequently visited dir at runtime
• Sort by modification, access and inode change time
• Compile out/in features with make variables
• Watch matrix text fly or read fortune messages
• Configure in 5 minutes!

Features

• Frugal
  • Typically needs less than 3.5MB resident memory
  • Works with 8 colors (and xterm 256 colors)
  • Disk-IO sensitive (few disk reads and writes)
  • No FPU usage (all integer maths, even for file size)
  • Minimizes screen refresh with fast line redraws
  • Tiny binary (typically around 100KB)
  • 1-column mode for smaller terminals and form factors
  • Hackable - compile in/out features and dependencies
• Portable
  • Language-agnostic plugins
  • Static binary available (no need to install)
  • Minimal library deps, easy to compile
  • No config file, minimal config with sensible defaults
  • Plugin to backup configuration
  • Widely available on many packagers
  • Touch enabled, comfortable on handhelds too!
  • Unicode support
• Quality
  • Privacy-aware (no unconfirmed user data collection)
  • POSIX-compliant, follows Linux kernel coding style
  • Highly optimized, static analysis integrated code
• Modes
  • Light (default), detail
  • Disk usage analyzer (block/apparent)
  • File picker, (neo)vim plugin
• Navigation
  • Type-to-nav mode with dir auto-select
  • Contexts (aka tabs/workspaces) with custom colors
  • Sessions, bookmarks with hotkeys; mark and visit a dir
  • Remote mounts (needs sshfs, rclone)
  • Familiar shortcuts (arrows, ~, -, @), quick look-up
  • cd on quit (easy shell integration)
  • Auto-advance on opening files
• Search
  • Instant filtering with search-as-you-type
  • Regex (POSIX/PCRE) and string (default) filters
  • Subtree search plugin to open or edit files
• Sort
  • Ordered pure numeric names by default (visit /proc)
  • Case-insensitive version (aka natural) sort
  • By name, access/change/mod (default) time, size, extn
  • Reverse sort
• Mimes
  • Preview hovered files in FIFO-based previewer
  • Open with desktop opener or specify a custom opener
  • File-specific colors (or minimal dirs in context color)
  • Icons (customize and compile-in)
  • Plugins for image and video thumbnails
  • Create, list, extract, mount (FUSE based) archives
  • Option to open all text files in $EDITOR
• Information
  • Detailed file information
  • Media information plugin
• Convenience
  • Run plugins and custom commands with hotkeys
  • FreeDesktop compliant trash (needs trash-cli)
  • Cross-dir file/all/range selection
  • Create (with parents), rename, duplicate files and dirs
  • Batch renamer for selection or dir
  • List input stream of file paths from stdin or plugin
  • Copy (as), move (as), delete, archive, link selection
  • Dir updates, notification on cp, mv, rm completion
  • Copy file paths to system clipboard on select
  • Launch apps, run commands, spawn a shell, toggle exe
  • Access hovered file as $nnn at prompt or spawned shell
  • Lock terminal after configurable idle timeout
  • Basic support for screen readers and braille displays

Quickstart

1. Install nnn and any dependencies you need. All files are opened with the desktop opener by default.
2. Add option -e to your alias to open text files in $VISUAL/$EDITOR/ vi. Open detached if you wish.
3. Configure cd on quit.
4. Sync subshell $PWD to nnn.
5. Install plugins.
6. Use -x to sync selection to system clipboard, show notis on cp, mv, rm completion and set xterm title.
7. For a CLI-only environment, customize and use plugin nuke with option -c (overrides -e).
8. Bid ls goodbye! alias ls='nnn -de' 😎
9. Visit the Live previews and Troubleshooting Wiki pages.

Don't memorize! Arrows, /, q suffice. Tab creates and/or cycles contexts. ? lists shortcuts.

Videos

• nnn file manager on Termux (Android)
• NNN File Manager
• This Week in Linux 114 - TuxDigital
• nnn file manager basics - Linux
• I'M GOING TO USE THE NNN FILE BROWSER! 😮
• NNN: Is This Terminal File Manager As Good As People Say?
• nnn - A File Manager (By Uoou, again.)

Elsewhere

• AddictiveTips
• ArchWiki
• FOSSMint
• gHacks Tech News
• Hacker News [1] [2]
• It's FOSS
• Linux Format Issue 265; Manage files with nnn
• LinuxLinks [1] [2] [3]
• Linux Magazine; FOSSPicks
• Make Tech Easier
• Open Source For You
• Suckless Rocks
• Ubuntu Full Circle Magazine Issue 135; Review: nnn
• Using and Administering Linux: Volume 2: Zero to SysAdmin: Advanced Topics
• Wikipedia

Developers

• Arun Prakash Jana (Copyright © 2016-2021)
• 0xACE
• Anna Arad
• KlzXS
• Léo Villeveygoux
• Sijmen J. Mulder
• and other contributors

Visit the ToDo list to contribute or see the features in progress.