nnn (type less, do more, way faster)

3 modes of nnn (light with filter, detail, du analyzer) with memory usage. Click for a demo video.

nnn is smooth... like butter. It’s one of the fastest and most lightweight file managers, thanks to a highly optimized code. And yet, it doesn’t lack in features!

It runs on Linux, macOS, Raspberry Pi, BSD, Cygwin, Linux subsystem for Windows and Termux on Android.

nnn works seamlessly with DEs and GUI utilities. Several plugins are available to extend its power. New plugins can be added easily.

Quickstart and see how nnn simplifies long desktop sessions.

Love smart and efficient utilities? Explore my repositories. Buy me a cup of coffee if they help you.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

• Features
• Installation
  • Library dependencies
  • Utility dependencies
  • From a package manager
  • Release packages
  • From source
  • Shell completion
• Quickstart
• Usage
  • Cmdline options
  • Keyboard shortcuts
  • Leader key
  • Contexts
    • Context-specific color
  • Selection
  • Filters
  • Navigate-as-you-type
  • File indicators
  • Configuration
  • Hot-plugged drives
  • SSHFS mounts
  • Help
• Plugins
• Troubleshooting
  • Tmux configuration
  • BSD terminal issue
  • 100% CPU usage
• Why fork?
• Mentions
• Developers

FEATURES

• Modes
  • Detail (default), light
  • Disk usage analyzer (block/apparent)
  • File picker, (neo)vim plugin
• Navigation
  • Navigate-as-you-type with auto-select dir, wild load
  • 4 contexts (aka tabs aka workspaces)
  • Bookmarks; pin and visit a directory
  • Familiar, easy shortcuts (arrows, ~, -, @)
• Sorting
  • Ordered pure numeric names by default (visit /proc)
  • Sort by file name, modification time, size
  • Version (aka natural) sort
• Search
  • Instant filtering with search-as-you-type
  • Regex and substring match
  • Subtree search to open or edit files (using plugin)
• Mimes
  • Open with desktop opener or specify a custom app
  • Create, list, extract archive (needs (p)atool)
  • Open all text files in EDITOR (optional)
• Information
  • Detailed file information (stat and file)
  • Media information (needs mediainfo/exiftool)
• Convenience
  • Create, rename files and directories
  • Select files across dirs; all/range selection
  • Copy, move, delete, archive, link selection
  • FreeDesktop compliant trash (needs trash-cli)
  • Show copy, move progress on Linux (needs avdcpmv)
  • Plugin repository
  • SSHFS mounts (needs sshfs)
  • Batch rename (needs vidir)
  • Per-context directory color (default: blue)
  • Spawn a shell in the current directory
  • Launch applications, run a command
  • Run current file as executable
  • Change directory at exit (easy shell integration)
  • Edit file in EDITOR or open in PAGER
  • Take quick notes
  • Lock the terminal (needs a locker)
  • Shortcut reference a keypress away
• Unicode support
• Follows Linux kernel coding style
• Highly optimized, static analysis integrated code
• Minimal library dependencies
• Available on many distros

INSTALLATION

Library dependencies

nnn needs a curses library with wide character support (like ncursesw), libreadline and standard libc. It’s possible to drop libreadline using the Makefile target norl.

Utility dependencies

Dependency	Operation
xdg-open (Linux), open(1) (macOS), cygstart (Cygwin)	desktop opener
file, coreutils (cp, mv, rm), findutils (xargs)	detect type, copy, move and remove files
trash-cli	trash files (default: delete)
mediainfo / exiftool	multimedia file details
atool / patool (integration)	create, list and extract archives
fzy	app launcher, subtree search
vidir (from moreutils)	batch rename dir entries
sshfs, fusermount(3)	mount, unmount remote over SSHFS
vlock (Linux), bashlock (macOS), lock(1) (BSD)	terminal locker
advcpmv (Linux) (integration)	copy, move progress
$VISUAL (else $EDITOR), $PAGER (less, most), $SHELL	fallback vi, less, sh

From a package manager

• Alpine Linux (apk add nnn)
• Arch Linux (pacman -S nnn)
• CRUX portdb (prt-get depinst nnn)
• Debian (apt-get install nnn)
• Fedora (dnf install nnn)
• FreeBSD (pkg install nnn)
• Gentoo (emerge nnn)
• macOS/Homebrew (brew install nnn)
• MacPorts (port install nnn)
• Milis Linux (mps kur nnn)
• NixOS (nix-env -i nnn)
• OpenBSD (pkg_add nnn)
• openSUSE (and packages for several other distros) (zypper in nnn)
• pkgrsc (pkg_add nnn)
• Raspbian Testing (apt-get install nnn)
• Slackware (slackpkg install nnn)
• Solus (eopkg install nnn)
• Source Mage (cast nnn)
• Termux (pkg in nnn)
• Ubuntu (apt-get install nnn)
• Void Linux (xbps-install -S nnn)

Release packages

Packages for Arch Linux, CentOS, Debian, Fedora and Ubuntu are available with the latest stable release.

From source

To cook yourself, download the latest stable release or clone this repository (risky). Then install the dependencies and compile (e.g. on Ubuntu 16.04):

$ sudo apt-get install pkg-config libncursesw5-dev libreadline6-dev
$ make
$ sudo make install

PREFIX is supported, in case you want to install to a different location.

• Compilation for Raspberry Pi
• Instructions for Cygwin

Shell completion

Option completion scripts for Bash, Fish and Zsh can be found in respective subdirectories of scripts/auto-completion/. Please refer to your shell’s manual for installation instructions.

QUICKSTART

1. Install the utilities required for your regular activities.
2. Configure cd on quit.
3. Optionally open all text files in $EDITOR (fallback vi): export NNN_USE_EDITOR=1
4. Run n.
5. To enable the GUI app launcher with a fuzzy drop-down selection menu nlaunch, drop it somewhere in your $PATH.
6. Don’t memorize keys. Arrows, / and q suffice. Press ? for help on keyboard shortcuts anytime.

• For additional functionality setup plugins.
• When you are ready for more, start hacking nnn.
• To set nnn as the default file manager, follow these instructions.

USAGE

Cmdline options

usage: nnn [-b key] [-d] [-e] [-i] [-l] [-n]
           [-p file] [-s] [-S] [-v] [-w] [-h] [PATH]

The missing terminal file manager for X.

positional args:
  PATH   start dir [default: current dir]

optional args:
 -b key  open bookmark key
 -d      show hidden files
 -e      use exiftool for media info
 -i      nav-as-you-type mode
 -l      light mode
 -n      use version compare to sort
 -p file selection file (stdout if '-')
 -s      string filters [default: regex]
 -S      du mode
 -v      show version
 -w      wild load
 -h      show help

Keyboard shortcuts

Press ? in nnn to see the list anytime.

 NAVIGATION
          ↑ k  Up          PgUp ^U  Scroll up
          ↓ j  Down        PgDn ^D  Scroll down
          ← h  Parent dir  ~ ` @ -  HOME, /, start, last
        ↵ → l  Open file/dir     .  Toggle show hidden
    Home g ^A  First entry    G ^E  Last entry
            /  Filter       Ins ^T  Toggle nav-as-you-type
            b  Pin current dir  ^B  Go to pinned dir
       Tab ^I  Next context      d  Toggle detail view
         , ^/  Leader key  N LeadN  Context N
          Esc  Exit prompt      ^L  Redraw/clear prompt
           ^G  Quit and cd       q  Quit context
         Q ^Q  Quit              ?  Help, config
 FILES
           ^O  Open with...      n  Create new/link
            D  File details     ^R  Rename entry
     ⎵ ^K / Y  Select entry/all  r  Batch rename
         K ^Y  Toggle selection  y  List selection
            P  Copy selection    X  Delete selection
            V  Move selection   ^X  Delete entry
            f  Create archive  m M  Brief/full mediainfo
           ^F  Extract archive   F  List archive
            e  Edit in EDITOR    p  Open in PAGER
 ORDER TOGGLES
           ^J  Disk usage        S  Apparent du
           ^W  Random  s  Size   t  Time modified
 MISC
         ! ^]  Spawn SHELL       C  Execute entry
         R ^V  Pick plugin       L  Lock terminal
            c  SSHFS mount       u  Unmount
           ^P  Prompt  ^N  Note  =  Launcher

Note: Help & settings, file details, media info and archive listing are shown in the PAGER. Use the PAGER-specific keys in these screens.

Leader key

The Leader key provides a powerful multi-functional navigation mechanism. It is case-sensitive and understands contexts, bookmarks and location shortcuts.

Key	Function
1-4	Go to/create selected context
>, .	Go to next active context
«/kbd>, ,	Go to previous active context
key	Go to bookmarked location
~ </kbd> <kbd>@</kbd> <kbd>-</kbd> | Go to HOME, /`, start, last visited dir |
q	Quit context

Contexts

Contexts serve the purpose of exploring multiple directories simultaneously. 4 contexts are available. The status of the contexts are shown in the top left corner:

• the current context is in reverse
• other active contexts are underlined
• rest are inactive

To switch to a context press the Leader key followed by the context number (1-4).

The first time a context is entered, it copies the state of the last visited context. Each context remembers its last visited directory.

When a context is quit, the next active context is selected. If the last active context is quit, the program quits.

Context-specific color

Each context can have its own directory color specified:

export NNN_CONTEXT_COLORS='1234'

colors: 0-black, 1-red, 2-green, 3-yellow, 4-blue (default), 5-magenta, 6-cyan, 7-white

Selection

Use ^K to select the file under the cursor.

To select multiple files:

• press ^Y to enter selection mode. In this mode it’s possible to
  • cherry-pick individual files one by one by pressing ^K on each entry (works across directories and contexts); or,
  • navigate to another file in the same directory to select a range of files
• press ^Y again to save the selection and exit selection mode.

NOTE: If you are on BSD/macOS, please check the BSD terminal issue with ^Y for workaround.

Selected files are visually indicated by a + before the entries.

The selection can now be listed, copied, moved, removed, archived or linked.

Absolute paths of the selected files are copied to the temporary file ~/.config/nnn/.selection. The path is shown in the help and configuration screen. If $NNN_COPIER is set the file paths are also copied to the system clipboard.

Filters

Filters support regexes (default) to instantly (search-as-you-type) list the matching entries in the current directory.

Common use cases:

• to list all matches starting with the filter expression, start the expression with a ^ (caret) symbol
• type \.mkv to list all MKV files
• use .* to match any character (sort of fuzzy search)

There is a program option to filter entries by substring match instead of regex.

Navigate-as-you-type

In this mode directories are opened in filter mode, allowing continuous navigation. Works best with the arrow keys.

When there’s a unique match and it’s a directory, nnn auto selects the directory and enters it in this mode. To disable this behaviour,

export NNN_NO_AUTOSELECT=1

This mode takes navigation to the next level when short, unique keypress sequences are possible. For example, to reach nnn development directory (located at ~/GitHub/nnn) from my $HOME (which is the default directory the terminal starts in), I use the sequence gn.

The wild load option can be extremely handy for users who use this mode constantly. The entries are unsorted when the directory loads. Applying filters sorts the entries (with directories on top). Directory color is disabled in this mode.

File indicators

The following indicators are used in the detail view:

Indicator	File Type
/	Directory
*	Executable
|	Fifo
=	Socket
@	Symbolic Link
@/	Symbolic Link to directory
b	Block Device
c	Character Device
?	Unknown

Configuration

nnn supports the following environment variables for configuration.

Example export	Description
NNN_BMS='d:~/Documents;D:~/Docs archive/'	specify bookmarks (max 10)
NNN_OPENER=mimeopen	custom file opener
NNN_CONTEXT_COLORS='1234'	specify per context color [default: ‘4444’ (all blue)]
NNN_IDLE_TIMEOUT=300	idle seconds before locking terminal [default: disabled]
NNN_COPIER='/absolute/path/to/copier'	system clipboard copier script [default: none]
NNN_NOTE=/home/user/Dropbox/notes	path to note file [default: none]
NNN_TMPFILE=/tmp/nnn	file to write current open dir path to for cd on quit
NNN_USE_EDITOR=1	open text files in $EDITOR ($VISUAL, if defined; fallback vi)
NNN_NO_AUTOSELECT=1	do not auto-select matching dir in nav-as-you-type mode
NNN_RESTRICT_NAV_OPEN=1	open files on ↵, not → or l
NNN_RESTRICT_0B=1	disable 0-byte file open; see #187, use edit or open with
NNN_TRASH=1	trash files to the desktop Trash [default: delete]
NNN_OPS_PROG=1	show copy, move progress on Linux

Hot-plugged drives

External storage devices can be (un)mounted using the plugin nmount.

For auto-mounting external storage drives use udev rules or udisks wrappers.

SSHFS mounts

To connect to and mount remote shares using SSHFS, nnn requires the ssh configuration file ~/.ssh/config to have the host entries. sshfs reads this file.

Example host entry for a Termux environment on Android device:

Host phone
    HostName 192.168.0.102
    User u0_a117
    Port 8022

The above host phone will be mounted at ~/.config/nnn/phone. nnn creates the directory phone if it doesn’t exist.

Notes:

1. nnn takes you to the mount point after successful mounts. To jump back to the last directory, press the usual -.
2. nnn doesn’t delete the mount point on unmount to prevent accidental data loss. Please ensure the mount point is not mounted if you are deleting it manually.
3. More information on SSHFS.

Help

$ nnn -h
$ man nnn

To lookup keyboard shortcuts at runtime, press ?.

PLUGINS

To extend the capabilities of nnn, plugins are introduced. Plugins are scripts which nnn can communicate with and trigger. This mechanism fits perfectly with the fundamental design to keep the core file manager lean and fast, by delegating repetitive (but not necessarily file manager-specific) tasks to the plugins.

Copy the plugins of your interest to ~/.config/nnn/plugins.

Use the pick plugin shortcut to visit the plugin directory and execute a plugin. Repeating the same shortcut cancels the operation and puts you back in the original directory.

If you have an interesting plugin feel free to raise a PR.

TROUBLESHOOTING

Tmux configuration

nnn might not handle keypresses correctly when used with tmux (see issue #104 for more details). Set TERM=xterm-256color to address it.

BSD terminal issue

TLDR: Use the keybind K to toggle selection if you are having issues with ^Y.

By default in OpenBSD & FreeBSD (and probably on macOS as well), stty maps ^Y to DSUSP. This means that typing ^Y will suspend nnn as if you typed ^Z (you can bring nnn back to the foreground by issuing fg) instead of entering multi-selection mode. You can check this with stty -a. If it includes the text dsusp = ^Y, issuing stty dsusp undef will disable this DSUSP and let nnn receive the ^Y instead.

100% CPU usage

There is a known issue where if you close the terminal directly with nnn waiting for a spawned process, a deadlock occurs and nnn uses 100% CPU. Please see issue #225 for more details. Make sure you quit the spawned process before closing the terminal. It’s not a problem if there is no spawned process (nnn isn’t blocked) as nnn checks if the parent process has exited.

WHY FORK?

nnn was initially forked from noice but is significantly different today. I chose to fork because:

• one can argue my approach deviates from the goal of the original project - keep the utility suckless. noice was rudimentary. In my opinion evolution is the taste of time.
• I would like to have a bit of control on what features are added in the name of desktop integration. A feature-bloat is the last thing in my mind. Check out the design considerations for more details.

Trivia: The name nnn stands for Noice is Not Noice, a noicer fork....

MENTIONS

• FOSSMint
• Hacker News
• It’s FOSS
• LinuxLinks1
• LinuxLinks2
• Suckless Rocks
• Ubuntu Full Circle Magazine - Issue 135

DEVELOPERS

1. Copyright © 2014-2016 Lazaros Koromilas
2. Copyright © 2014-2016 Dimitris Papastamos
3. Copyright © 2016-2019 Arun Prakash Jana

Contributions are welcome. Please visit the ToDo list.