vifm - The Terminal File Manager For The Vim-Centric User

About three weeks ago, I did a video tutorial on Vim. After that video, I was looking around for other terminal applications that use Vim keybindings and Vim syntax. I found vifm--a dual-paned terminal file manager that functions very much like Vim.
vifm.info/
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[@jcwl70]

00:00 Intro 02:29 launch vifm 02:52 how navigate 03:57 How exit vifm 04:27 start vifm with a couple of arguments 05:20 play around with panes 07:17 preview a file 11:03 how show hidden files (I missed za keybinding) 12:25 how change a file name 14:10 bookmarks 16:55 delete, paste, move files 18:55 vifm config files 22:55 set up color theme 23:27 Thanks

[@artaway6647]

Doing the god's work

[@superfoxbat]

How to preview image or video? Same as document? How about thumbnails?

[@quervo151]

gj bro

[@Microphunktv-jb3kj]

is this thing fuzzy-searchable?

[@thengakola6217]

nice.. thanks

[@perahh7659]

Your voice relax me☺️

[@OmarIskandarone]

Just found out about vifm today, life is getting a whole lot better!

[@FantabulousNoise]

Glad you're taking a look. This is still a mainstay for me since I recommended it a while ago.

[@russghound]

This was very helpful in learning how to get around in VIFM. Thanks!

[@netherlabgames7511]

EPIC video! Thanks for being so thorough!!

[@AegirAexx]

Your videos are great. Keep on keeping on.

[@andrewpalm2103]

Thanks for another very useful tutorial, Derek! After your mention of vifm on the Free & Open Chat a week and a half ago I gave it a try. I have been using ranger for some time now, but vifm looked interesting. You can in fact make ranger effectively two-pane by changing its rc.config file to include the line "set column_ratios 1,1" and then create a tab with "gt" when it is open. However, I liked vifm because the keybindings are closer to vim than those in ranger. The vifm configuration file makes it easy to create your own commands. However, it's a bit harder to find key combinations not already used by vifm, so I took a clue from reading the config file and start my custom commands with a comma. Also, I prefer when opening files to open another window rather than remain inside vifm, and custom commands are a way to do this. Here are some examples: " ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ " My custom keybindings " Use F4 for editing with vim but with fork nnoremap :!xterm -e vim %f & " Mount and unmount usb thumb drive to /dev/sdb1 nnoremap ,usbm :!udisksctl mount -b /dev/sdb1 nnoremap ,usbu :!udisksctl unmount -b /dev/sdb1 " Preview multiple image files in sxiv thumbnail mode nnoremap ,vi :!sxiv -t %f & " Use Geany editor nnoremap ,g :!geany %f & " ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ By the way, the sxiv image viewer is a very nice program from suckless that uses vim keybindings. I learned about it from looking at vifm. I very much like the image preview feature in ranger, but it does require w3m-img and a compatible terminal (xterm is the easiest in my experience, once your .Xresources file is set up). Using sxiv is fast and you can use VISUAL mode to select multiple files to view in sxiv thumbnail mode (see above). And as you can see from the last custom command, I still use Geany for programming instead of vim. :-) Cheers, Andy

[@DistroTube]

Good stuff, Andy!

[@bloque9.estrategiaseninter374]

Thanks for the tutorial. Such a great one and discovered vifm because of your videos. Congrats!

[@DanielBornt]

I love vim an dthis file manager might actually come in really handy for me! Thanks for the great content!

[@DistroTube]

Thanks, Daniel! I might do more with vifm on a video in the future. Keep finding neat stuff with it.

[@Delis007]

Great video, thanks! Merry Christmas

[@bobgrimes8618]

Merry Christmas DistroTube! Hope you got a lot of Linuxy gifts under your tree!

[@DistroTube]

Merry Christmas, Bob!

[@billfawcett3691]

@Grayson Peddie You obviously didn't drop enough hints in the last few weeks b4 Christmas. Mind you I dropped "I need (yet another) new battery for my Dell Mini 9" hints for months - Santa wasn't listening B-(

[@guilherme5094]

Thanks DT this is great!

[@DistroTube]

Thanks, Felix.

[@Ictioso]

Great video, keep it up man, congrats

[@RobBoudreau]

Great overview DT. I've been using vifm for quite a while, couple years I guess by now. Love it. It can do "Miller mode", the 3-pane view like default Ranger too, though I don't know why anyone would. A quick tip you may have already found: where you set what opens filetypes in the rc file, if you want to have a choice of the programs to use, add them under the default one with the same syntax. Then when you're on the file, type ":f" , and it will open a menu for you to choose what app to use, based on what you put in the vifmrc. You can also get it to preview images like Ranger. wiki.vifm.info/index.php/How_to_preview_images Works really well. It's a great application, I'm glad to see it get some recognition and showcasing. Thanks Derek, and again, a very Merry Christmas to you!

[@DistroTube]

Thanks, Rob. Good stuff...especially with the image previews. Personally, I don't need image previews....I usually didn't enable them in Ranger. But for many people, it is a nice feature and, for some, probably a deal-breaker so it's good that it's supported. Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!

[@RobBoudreau]

@@DistroTube, I agree. I only use it when I want to make sure an image is the one I'm looking for. Hit "w" and it shows me the image like the text view, hit "w" again and it's gone. It's faster than launching some other viewer just for a peek. Really, vifm has become my Swiss Army Knife. I have it tailored to my needs, and use it for everything. I'm so glad you chose to do a show about it, I really think more people - especially CLI users - should be made aware of it.

[@SzTz100]

Thanks, I didn't know about vifm

[@riseabove3082]

I know this is a year old but I LOVE VIFM. I was using Ranger as my previous favorite and I tried MC but the speed of VIFM can't be beat. Just wish you covered how easy it is to change file permissions and group/owner too. Those are useful.

[@marioschroers7318]

Using ranger here. The more I dig into vim (actually using nvim as a matter of fact), the more appealing playing around with other terminal applications gets. Considering checking out vifm now :)

[@autonaut279]

this makes me want to make a file manager!

[@yallaoui]

Hi DT Indeed vifm is a great file manager. FYI in xfce if one maps nnoremap o :!thunar %f & then you can open any file with its default application. This optimizes the vifmrc a great deal. Best

[@Diego-ms4ts]

You should review the "nnn" file manager.

[@magno5157]

Very, very nice for Vim users. One thing I'm curious about is that what does the search command "/" and the substitute ex-command ":s" do in Vifm??? Using almost-Perl-like regex in a file manager would be very nice indeed.

[@Rypervenche]

When you add or delete marks with :marks, it only affects the ~/.config/vifm/vifminfo file, which is why you were having that problem. You'll need to remove it from your vifmrc file if you really want it gone for good. (and then maybe again from :marks)

[@indigo0086]

This is awesome, I discovered this far too late lol. The mnemonics are off though

[@thingsiplay]

14:54 "Watch what happens…" Goes to the Videos folder. "ahhhm" Switches to a different folder. xD

[@3N4N]

Hey, thanks for the videos. Really entertaining and educational. I was wondering why not use ranger cause most of the people use that. It's a little bloated. But if you want minimal then you should think about NNN. Hope to know your thoughts.

[@DistroTube]

>I was wondering why not use ranger cause most of the people use that. Most people use Ubuntu. Should I run Ubuntu? Most people probably use GNOME. Should I run GNOME too? As far as why vifm compared to nnn...vifm uses vim commands. I know those commands. The commands in nnn are not intuitive at all and would take some effort to learn. And what is the payoff for that? What am I getting in nnn that I don't get in vifm?

[@3N4N]

@@DistroTube makes sense.

[@gjermundification]

ScreenKey FTW!

[@MrDeejayjfx]

nice

[@svenwindpassinger2170]

Is it possible to use it like midnight commander to? Like left source and right destination. Or to compare, etc?

[@guyincognito5663]

Man, I wasted so much of my time not using vim and vifm.

[@SlideRSB]

I've been using Ranger but the 2-pane design of vifm looks nice to me. The thing with Ranger that seems hands down the best is how it handles opening files using rifle. Also previewing images in the terminal is pretty awesome. I'll have to put vifm to the test to see if it can dethrone Ranger for me. Is vifm your preferred file manager now, Derek?

[@DistroTube]

Been using it for the past 2 or 3 weeks. I like it. Will I stick with it long term? Uh, maybe. Who knows. But I do love the workflow of this thing.

[@llellouche]

Try nnn it's minimalistic terminal file manager based it's amazing

[@webmandman]

hey did you stick with vifm? its been more than a year. if not, what are you using now?

[@DOLGOVUSER]

Any clue how to force it to use terminal colors? It just overrides my ST colors and it's config's 255-color-syntax is just pure confusion...

[@kostasxgodspeed6530]

Hey DT, do you have an idea if and how I can connect to Samba Shares with ViFM? This will help me get rid of gui file manager

[@xthebumpx]

What color scheme is your terminal using?

[@sergeynosov1901]

What do you think about emacs/spacemacs with evil to use instead of vim?

[@DistroTube]

I've never used emacs.

[@Jorge-xf9gs]

@@DistroTube Lol, remember the good ol' days when you were pure XD

[@MrOnion2001]

First: sorry for not reading all the comments, so maybe it is possible this question is double I am just a user, not software engineer, and I recently stumbled over vifm and still looking and making familiar with it, but it seems to be a light and "good to handle" file manager. What I didn't find till now: is there any function to change more than one filename at once (e.g. with ascending numbers)? example holiday photos: 100 pics on card and I want to change the automatic (number-)filename in name001, name002 ... name100

[@GreyDeathVaccine]

Ranger fits my needs better, but vifm has some nice features.

[@aleksandar4411]

Also check cp command. It makes changing file permissions childs play.

[@samdavis9751]

white mace windu with that purple font

[@gordo120294]

I do not speak English but I will get the question, sorry. In the 9:34 minute of the video you press the "ISO_LEFT_TAB" key, I do not know how to interpret it and I am interested in the functionality it performs. Thank you

[@iMarimbaFTW]

I lose terminal transparency in vifm, any idea how to fix it? Thanks EDIT: It works on my laptop w/ dwm + compton. Not on my desktop with xfce, I also tried another terminal + compton and it didn't work either. Weird, sounds like an xfce issue. EDIT2: Fixed in the colors section, changing ctermbg=black to ctermbg=none in the Win highlight section. It isn't set to that on my laptop and gets transparency, so that's odd lol oh well.

[@DistroTube]

Glad you figured the color part out. I've noticed transparency in some terminal apps works in certain terminal emulators and not in others. Lynx, for example, is nice and transparent in urxvt. Not transparent in st with the alpha patch. Not a big deal though because you can always add in some transparency with compton if all else fails.

[@CaptianMurdock]

How would you compare this to Ranger?

[@DistroTube]

I've been enjoying vifm a bit more than ranger. The vim keybindings make it pretty intuitive. There are even some hacks out there to get icons in vifm, and w3m image previews in vifm. I got the icons working pretty easily. The w3m image previews aren't working correctly for me though (the image shows but is buggy--think I messed up something in the config file for it).

[@Subzearo]

Can more than one file be highlighted at once? If so, what is that action called?

[@DistroTube]

Hit "t" to select/deselect. If you are selecting a large block of files, hit "v" to get into visual mode and then j/k to select.

[@DD-su8zm]

this is insane..

[@dreadesina5216]

What plugin to install vifm ?

[@bendover4728]

How do you change the names of several files at once? I saw certain bald man performing this trick some time ago..

[@benvella1728]

Pattern based substitution. /%s/oldText/newText/flags Edit: should mention it is regex compatible which is insane.

[@zulkris]

spelling v i f m exactly as google-translate do it :D

[@Baddream_TTV]

Does it do image and pdf preview like ranger?

[@DistroTube]

There is a bit of a hack to get vifm to display w3m image previews similar to ranger. I wasn't able to get it working correctly though...the images show for me but only for a split second and then disappear. I've been researching other ways to preview images. Haven't come up with a solution that I like yet. Other previews, like text and pdfs, all work just fine in vifm. Vifm can also have icons for files/directories similar to ranger.

[@L.S.Stephens3]

See time index 22:55. After he explains changing colors, he makes reference to change/update filetypes with the appropriate apps.

[@vitormelo22]

I like more than ranger.

[@olekollo7875]

what is better vifm or ranger?

[@folksurvival]

nnn

[@totheknee]

functionality of cw and cW should be swapped. Has the author of vifm ever even used vi?

[@HDQuote]

my inactive panel has all lines with black text and white background which looks really ugly. How can I disable this feature?

[@HDQuote]

Solved it by just doing: > sudo pacman -Rns vifm > rm -r .config/vifm

[@HDQuote]

Actually, after every restart of vifm it redoes these changes

[@HDQuote]

Solved now for good: change: colorscheme Default to: " colorscheme Default (i.e. comment it out)

[@idopshik]

A very cool video. ranger is better btw.

[@hanspetervollhorst1]

where is your .vifmrc ?

[@Robertass2000]

would be good to get functionality with w key for pictures. i hit w and guess what. bunch of mess instead of picture preview.

[@homfes]

Were you already able to find the fix for this?

[@IsraelJuliusKJ]

One "q", Tovaris. Just one "q".

[@DOLGOVUSER]

Once again i'm here to ask: TERMINAL COLORS IN VIFM. HOW.

[@dam0ne]

Installed vifm and all of a sudden the pane I am not in got its colors inverted. Just for navigation, if I preview a file colors looks just fine. Tried reinstalling to no avail, any help would be appreciated. Thanks! Pic related: ibb.co/zsyvpb6

[@dam0ne]

Adding a new color theme and setting it in the rc file seems to have fixed the issue

[@moamenfoad4864]

How i can start my linux career What jobs will avilable for me as freelancer How i can kearn basics

[@DistroTube]

You asking the wrong guy. I work in retail. :D

[@nileshk1455]

I have the same question, although I work in other technology I love linux from the core. Its terminal interface, capability to do everything through keyboard :D, open sourceness and large community but alas I dont find any way to use this passion in the earning as well. I hope love for linux never dies among people....

[@MoreChannelNoise]

Nice video abt it. Just a tip for begginers to vifm, when in a dir and you want to goto a sub dir, type /nameofdir then press l to enter it

[@loupax]

> Installs vifm > Plays around, bindings work as expected > Enables preview mode by typing `w` and it works as expected > Creates empty ~/.vifm folder so he can create custom configuration > Runs vifm again > Everything is broken 😭😭😭😭

[@4clive]

What a kerfuffle, I'll stick with Thunar. Once again, mixing server stuff with desktop stuff.

[@parasbhanot]

i think midnight commander is much easier than vifm

[@akshatsingh6036]

how to make my terminal like u

[@bool2max]

I love your vids but it's kinda weird how you rarely ever look at the camera, it seems like you're reading everything off of a script

[@JudahRichardson1]

Hard pass.

[@AlucardNoir]

3:17 "If you wanted to, you could use the arrow keys. The arrow keys do function." So it's nothing like Vim then.

[@DistroTube]

The arrow keys work in vim by default. Many vim users disable them though.

[@AlucardNoir]

@@DistroTube Of course they do, who can afford an IBM Model M? Wait, what year is it that's just about to come to an end? Edit: Also, Merry Saturnalia and a free and open source new year to you and yours!