Joshuto is a ranger-like terminal file manager written in Rust, intended for keyboard-driven users on Linux and macOS who want a fast, configurable text-interface file browser rather than a graphical one.

What it is

Joshuto is a terminal user interface file manager built in Rust and distributed through crates.io, listed in this registry under Productivity & Utilities / File Management & Sync. It follows the interaction model popularised by ranger: a keyboard-first browser in which navigation, tab handling, and file operations are bound to single keystrokes and prefixes such as g g, d d, y y, and p p. The project is licensed under LGPL-3.0 and carries topics including file-manager, tui, termion, tui-rs, ncurses, clipboard, concurrency, and toml, which reflect both its interface toolkit and its configuration format.

The concrete thing it replaces is ranger itself — or more precisely, the Python implementation of that idea. Someone who likes ranger's vi-inspired keybindings but wants a compiled binary, asynchronous file operations, and a configuration surface written in TOML can install joshuto and keep the workflow. Configuration lives in a set of TOML files: joshuto.toml for general settings, keymap.toml for keybindings, mimetype.toml for opening files with applications, theme.toml for colours, and bookmarks.toml for bookmarks. That makes a configuration portable, diffable, and easy to keep in a dotfiles repository rather than expressed as Python code.

Key capabilities

• Tab management with ctrl+t to open a new tab, T to open one at the current directory, W or ctrl+w to close it, and tab/backtab to cycle between tabs.
• Asynchronous file I/O for cut, copy, and paste, driven by d d, y y, p p, and p o for paste with overwrite.
• Bulk rename across selected files, plus symlink creation with p l for an absolute path and p L for a relative one.
• File previews, including a documented image preview setup under /docs/image_previews, and devicons in directory listings.
• Fuzzy search through fzf, with optional integration of zoxide and clipboard access via xsel, xclip, or wl-clipboard.
• Further affordances including a file chooser, trash support, line numbers, jump to number, toggling hidden files with z h, a task view on w, and exit to current directory.

Who uses it and how

• Individual users install it for a single account with cargo install --path=. --force, which places the binary in that user's own cargo bin directory.
• Administrators can install it machine-wide with the --root=/usr/local flag.
• NixOS users can consume it as a flake input and overlay, adding pkgs.joshuto to environment.systemPackages, or try it without installing by running nix run github:kamiyaa/joshuto.
• macOS users obtain it through MacPorts with sudo port install joshuto, or through Homebrew with brew install joshuto.
• Terminal-centric workflows gain from exit-to-current-directory, which lets a shell land in the browsed directory, and from the fzf and zoxide integrations for moving around large trees.

Getting started

Install with cargo using cargo install --git https://github.com/kamiyaa/joshuto.git --force, or use the pre-compiled binary script that installs into $HOME/.local/bin/, or a package manager such as Homebrew or MacPorts. Run it by invoking joshuto.

How it compares

Among the tools named in the project's own facts, ranger is the direct point of comparison: joshuto reproduces its ranger-style, keyboard-driven layout while being written in Rust rather than Python. Where ranger is configured through Python code, joshuto exposes joshuto.toml, keymap.toml, mimetype.toml, theme.toml, and bookmarks.toml for the same purposes.

When to use it — and when not to

Building from source requires cargo and rustc 1.90 or newer, and the optional clipboard, fzf, and zoxide integrations depend on those external programs being installed. Anyone who prefers a graphical file manager, or who needs a finished built-in command line, should look elsewhere for the moment: the README describes that command line as "mostly working" and "kind of janky", with tab autocomplete still in progress, and the repository carries 102 open issues. The licence is LGPL-3.0, which is worth checking against the terms of any redistribution.

~$ cargo build

~$ cargo install --path=. --force

~$ cargo install --git https://github.com/kamiyaa/joshuto.git --force

~# cargo install --path=. --force --root=/usr/local     # /usr also works

~$ bash <(curl -s https://raw.githubusercontent.com/kamiyaa/joshuto/master/utils/install.sh)

~$ INSTALL_PREFIX="$HOME" bash <(curl -s https://raw.githubusercontent.com/kamiyaa/joshuto/master/utils/install.sh)

~# INSTALL_PREFIX="/usr/local/bin" bash <(curl -s https://raw.githubusercontent.com/kamiyaa/joshuto/master/utils/install.sh)

~$ RELEASE_VER='v0.9.4' bash <(curl -s https://raw.githubusercontent.com/kamiyaa/joshuto/master/utils/install.sh)

sudo dnf copr enable atim/joshuto -y
sudo dnf install joshuto

[yay/paru] -S joshuto

[yay/paru] -S joshuto-git

[yay/paru] -S joshuto

[yay/paru] -S joshuto-git

sudo eselect repository enable gentoo-zh
sudo emerge -av app-misc/joshuto

{
  description = "My configuration";

  inputs = {
    nixpkgs.url = "github:NixOS/nixpkgs/nixos-unstable";
    joshuto.url = "github:kamiyaa/joshuto";
  };

  outputs = { nixpkgs, joshuto, ... }:
    {
      nixosConfigurations = {
        hostname = nixpkgs.lib.nixosSystem
          {
            system = "x86_64-linux";
            modules = [
              {
                nixpkgs.overlays = [ joshuto.overlays.default ];
                environment.systemPackages = with pkgs;[
                  joshuto
                ];
              }
            ];
          };
      };
    };
}

nix run github:kamiyaa/joshuto

sudo port install joshuto

brew install joshuto

~ $ joshuto